


Persecution

by McG



Series: After the end [2]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, F/M, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Original Character(s), Post-Season/Series Finale, Queer Themes, Sexual Confusion, brief infidelity, discussion of asexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-04-01 06:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13992534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McG/pseuds/McG
Summary: A young man is killed in a quiet Oxford park. His body is staged to emulate a famous Christian martyrdom. There are precious few clues to find, and no obvious suspects. Then another man is found dead.It seems there is a serial killer is on the loose in Oxford.  But...the victims aren't connected to each other, and no one had any reason to hurt them.Against a background of personal growth and development, Hathaway and Maddox must hunt down a killer before he strikes again.





	1. Chapter 1

It was dark still when Jenny Smith left the building by the front door, sunrise a few hours off yet, and there was a distinct chill in the air. The weather had been warm most of the week so far, but there was a definite autumnal note as the temperature dropped overnight. She pulled her blazer tighter around her, and shouldered her handbag, heels clip-clopping across the carpark as she crossed from the Hall of Residence to the main road. What had she been thinking, she asked herself, smiling wryly at her actions. Her friends were never going to let her live it down, going home with an 18 year old. A first year undergrad at that. _Dan,_ she reminded herself. He was called Dan, and he was sporty, and enthusiastic and good looking, and when that group of self entitled pricks from Corpus Christi had spilled her drink and not even apologised, he had offered to buy her a new one, and he did seem nice. She’d had fun.

Perhaps a one night stand with a teenage Brookes student is exactly what she’d needed to get herself out of the rut she’d been in lately. No boyfriend, a shitty job that had failed to deliver on any of its promises of career development and prospects, and a mouldy flat that she could barely afford, living in a city she didn’t even like that much. 

When she’d agreed to go out for Karen-from-marketing’s birthday drinks last night she had really only intended to have one drink then head home. But she’d had a good time, and then they’d moved onto another bar and then the dickhead poshos had done their thing and she’d met Dan. He was polite and charming and funny, and not especially intellectual but bright and enthusiastic in his chat nonetheless. He was nice, and not like any of the guys she ended up being matched with on any of her dating apps, and he invited her back to his place and why the hell not. 

She glanced both ways before crossing the deserted road and heading for the park gate to take a shortcut back into town. The moon was setting, casting some light through the trees, just enough to make out the path and highlight any fallen branches or puddles. There wasn’t any street lighting in this part of the park, but at this time in the morning she was confident that there was no one around so the shortcut would be safe enough. She just about had time for a couple more hours of sleep before work, and this route would add precious minutes onto her nap time. 

She hitched her bag further onto her shoulder and crossed under a line of trees and towards a bridge over the small stream. It was still and quiet, no sound from the nearby road, and just the occasional rustle in the bushes as she disturbed the inhabitant creatures as she walked by. Closer to the river there was the sound of trickling water, and somewhere further upstream she heard the soft quacking of a duck. She rounded the corner and struck left at a fork in the footpath, looking down at her feet to navigate a pothole and patch of fallen leaves. 

It was when she looked back up that she saw it. 

At first she thought her mind was playing tricks, twisting the shadows of trees in the dark into grotesque shapes in the gloom. A tree that looked almost like the shape of a man, arms out to the sides and head hanging forward. With sudden sickening horror, she realised that’s exactly what it was. 

Hands shaking, and tears springing at the horror before her, she fumbled in her bag for her phone. 

 

\---

 

James Hathaway started awake as his phone started to ring. The harsh buzz as it vibrated its way across the coffee table, and the clatter as it tipped off the edge and onto the floor. He lurched upright from his prone position on the sofa and fumbled for the phone with one hand, untangling the woolen blanket from his feet at the same time. 

He glanced at the caller ID before answering. The months of slow decline in his father’s health had meant that middle of the night calls made his heart rate rise and created a ball of anxiety. It only would be work from now, he remembered a little belatedly. This time someone else’s pain and anguish; some other family getting the dreaded call.

“Hathaway,” he answered, already crossing his flat to the bedroom, mechanically choosing a suit while listening to the scant details rattled off to him by his sergeant. He squinted into the mirror, assessing whether he’d be able to get away without shaving (a bonus of being so fair haired) and mentally cursing himself for having fallen asleep wearing his contact lenses. Again. 

Once he had confirmed the location and his estimated arrival time, he ended the call, and plugged his phone into charge while he showered and dressed. Sergeant Maddox had at least assured him that she would bring coffee to their crime scene.

\---

When Hathaway arrived at the scene he pulled his car into the side of the road behind the phalanx of police patrol cars, the blue flashing lights glittering off the trees that bordered the park, illuminating the otherwise dark night. The barest hint of lighter sky had been visible on the horizon as he’d driven through the deserted city centre streets, but here the eastern sky was obscured. 

He nodded a greeting to the uniformed police officer guarding the gate to the park, and followed the line of police tape and the path towards the floodlights being set up for the forensic team. 

As he rounded the corner he spotted Sergeant Maddox. She waved when she saw him, and crossed to greet him, leaving a young woman wrapped in a red emergency blanket under the supervision of a PC. 

“Morning,” Maddox greeted, handing over an insulated travel mug filled with coffee. 

“What have we got?” he asked, already taking in the sight of the forensic team setting up, although the dead body itself had been screened off with a white tent to keep away prying eyes and protect the scene. 

“A crucifixion.” Maddox stated bluntly. 

Hathaway’s attention snapped right back to her at that. 

“Seriously?” 

“Yep. Young man, probably in his early 20s, possibly a student. Tied to a tree, hands and feet have been nailed to it. Dr. Hobson arrived just before you; she’s taking a look now.”

He nodded towards the woman Maddox had been talking to when he arrived. 

“Is that who found the body?”

“Yes: her name’s Jenny Smith, 26 years old, she’s a marketing executive and lives in Jericho. She spent the night with a friend at the Brookes Halls just the other side of the park. She was on her way home, taking a shortcut through the park when she saw him. Control have the call time listed at 04:13. She didn’t see or hear anything, no signs of anyone around the park, just her and the resident wildlife she thought.” 

Donning protective scene suits they ducked into the forensic tent, and greeted the grim scene. 

“What do we know?” Hathaway asked Dr. Hobson. She raised an eyebrow at his lack of civility, but didn’t comment on it. 

“Not much yet.” she informed them. “He’s been badly beaten. I wish I could tell you that he was dead before he was trussed up like this, but the level of bleeding from the wounds on the hands and feet would suggest not. He must have been here for a few hours, but rigour mortis isn’t fully set in yet, so not too long. I’ll know more when I get him back to base.” 

“Sir!” a uniformed police constable came jogging over, evidence bag in hand. “We’ve found a wallet in the bushes by the bridge. Driving license looks like our victim.” he handed over the wallet, and with gloved hands Sergeant Maddox flipped through and pulled out the green rectangle of a provisional driving license. 

“Michael Carr, 19 years old,” she read out, “the address is in Cheltenham, but there’s a student bus pass and a library card in here for Brookes University. I’m guessing the Cheltenham address is his parents.” 

“Right, let’s confirm that and get someone to inform the next of kin. And get on to the university as soon as we can, find out where he lived and who saw him last.” Hathaway ordered, stepping away and taking a moment to collect himself. 

Nineteen was awfully young to be dead at all, let along brutally beaten and nailed to a tree, Hathaway thought to himself, stepping away from the crime scene and lighting a cigarette. 

He needed more coffee. 

\---

It was never easy to break the news of a death, even less so when it was a murder and the person involved was still a teenager. Nonetheless, that was the unhappy job of the Gloucestershire Constabulary, arriving at a 1980s semi-detached house in a quiet cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Cheltenham just as the sun was rising over Cleeve Hill. The anguished cry of his mother was painful to hear. The look of despair and stoic silence from his father no less terrible. 

Meanwhile, back in Oxford a no less unpleasant task befell the team, to inform the university of the gruesome discovery and to track down the victim’s friends. 

By nine o’clock the team were assembled at the police station, ready for the morning briefing. 

“Alright everyone, settle down,” Hathaway called, gripping his third coffee of the day like it was a lifeline. “Sergeant Maddox, can you please take us through what we have so far?”

He slumped back against the wall, at the back of the collected detectives, as the team turned to face Maddox and the whiteboard on which they had started to assemble the facts of the case. 

Maddox smiled briefly in acknowledgement, took a final swig from her tea, and began the briefing.

“Michael Carr had just started his second year at Brookes, studying for a BA in Fine Art. He lived in Halls at Cheney Student village, which is close to the park where his body was found. His bedroom was in a unit with four other students, a Melissa Bell, Fiona Kazmeirczak, Rashid Ahmed and Daniel Salter. The housing office doesn’t know whether they’re particularly friends, as they were randomly assigned to the accommodation. None of them are fellow art students though, but we have been in touch with the course office and we’ve got the name of Carr’s tutor, and we’ve left a message for her to call us. 

“The park being closed for a police investigation is causing a bit of a stir among the students at Cheney Halls and in Headington campus, and we’ve got the student paper and the Mail asking questions. There’s already rumours that someone has died, so let’s get someone to speak to his flatmates at the halls and see if we can get an idea who his friends were, when he was last seen, and how he came to be in that park last night. We’ve heard from family liaison in Cheltenham, and the parents are on their way to do formal ID now. It’ll be a couple of hours until they arrive, so let’s find some answers for them. Thanks everyone.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Away from the action, Robbie wants to know about the case, and James and Nell meet up for coffee.

“So how in the case going?” Robbie Lewis asked, stirring onions in a pan. 

James blew out a puff of air and tipped his head back against the kitchen cabinet he was leaning on. 

“Not well. Nice, normal kid. No enemies, doing well at his course, liked by his housemates. They were on a night out together, the others decide to go on to another club, he opts to head home as he has an early lecture on the Thursday. The friends ask if he wants someone to come with him, he declines; they never see him again. 

“We have CCTV that confirms when he left them, and tracks him walking towards home. We can’t pinpoint his exact route, as the camera coverage is too sparse once he’s out the city centre. But his friends confirm it’s not unusual for them to take shortcuts through the park. We’re pretty sure he was attacked somewhere else and then moved, but we have yet to find where. The beating is what killed him, though he probably wasn’t quite dead yet when he was tied to the tree and nailed in place.”

“Somewhere else in the park?” Robbie asked, tearing the plastic top off a packet of mince, “Or somewhere else entirely?” he dumped the mince into the saucepan on top of the onions and began jabbing at it with a wooden spatula to break up the lumps of meat. 

“I have no fucking idea,” James declared, exasperated. “We have one odd coincidence,” he continued, “the woman who found the body was on her way home after spending the night with one of the victim’s flatmates. But it’s a one-night thing, she’s not a regular girlfriend, and she doesn’t seem to have ever met the victim before. We’re checking her out just in case, but I think it’s genuinely just a coincidence.” 

He twisted round to the cupboard by his head and reached out a box of stock cubes and jar of oregano, passing them to Robbie. 

“Thanks. Did he have a girlfriend? Any messy romantic entanglements?”

“He was gay, but no boyfriend. The friends report that he doesn’t particularly date, though he wasn't against the idea. His phone is missing, but calls and texts from the provider don’t show any secret assignations. Having said that, apparently they all use WhatsApp for most of their messaging, and that’s encrypted. Without the phone we’ll struggle on that. We’re trying to trace whether he used any dating apps, but that could be like looking for a proverbial needle.” 

Robbie hummed thoughtfully, and began chopping a carrot. 

“What about religious affiliation?” Robbie asked, “Laura said he was crucified…”

“Nothing that we can find. The parents are C of E in a vague weddings-and-funerals sort of a way, there’s no religious paraphernalia in his room, and he’s not joined any religious student societies.”

Robbie tipped the carrots into the pan with the mince and onions and began opening a tin of chopped tomatoes. 

The sound of the key in the lock interrupted just then, with Laura calling out a greeting as she arrived home, clutching a bottle of wine in hand. 

“Only me! And can we please stop discussing work, I’ve had enough of dead bodies for one day.”

She kissed Robbie in greeting, and handed the wine bottle to James to open. 

\---

Later, once they had eaten their fill of bolognese, and James had excused himself to the garden for a post-dinner cigarette, Laura contradicted herself and brought up the case again.

“How’s he taking this?” She asked Robbie, indicating with a tilt of her head towards the garden that she was talking about James. 

“He seems fine. ...It’s not his first brutal murder.” he reminded with an eyebrow raise. 

“I know,” Laura said, “but with the religious aspect, and, well--” 

“Well what?” 

“Popular theory so far is that the victim’s sexuality and the religious aspect are connected.” she waited for a reaction from Robbie but when she didn’t get one, continued, “and we know there’s an outstanding question mark there with our James…?”

“We know nothing of the sort!” Robbie reprimanded. “And he won’t take kindly to being gossiped about.” he reminded her. “So I hope you’ve not been spreading this kind of thing down the nick.”

“Of course not,” Laura tutted, rolling her eyes. “I’m just saying, people do gossip and it’s not gone without notice that he’s a ‘confirmed bachelor’, as they say.” 

“If he wants to share his personal life then he will. And damn good luck to anyone who wants to try and get something out of him that he’s not willing to share. I’ve learned that one well enough.”

Laura hummed quietly in agreement and sat back in her chair as the back door clunked and James re-entered the house. 

“James, be a dear and fetch some more wine,” she called, smiling at him as he paused in the dining room doorway. He gave her a brief salute and continued to the kitchen, reaching for the wine rack and choosing a second bottle. 

\---

The cafe was crowded and noisy, but James was relieved to see that his sister had arrived before him and had secured a small table by the window. He raised a hand in greeting at her as he joined the queue at the counter. Nell started clearing away her belongings, making space at the table. Tidying away her notebook and a stack of church flyers for Bible club, street chaplains and an upcoming bake sale. 

“How are you?” Nell asked, once he was settled with his coffee and sandwich. “You sounded stressed when I called yesterday…”

“It’s just work. You read about the murdered student?”

“The newspaper was reporting that he was crucified?” She prompted in a hushed, horrified whisper. 

James did not outright confirm it, but quirked an eyebrow in quasi-confirmation. 

“That’s awful,” Nell continued, subconsciously pulling her mug of tea closer to herself in a gesture of comfort. “I can’t even imagine how someone could do that.” 

“Well, if you hear anyone boasting about their latest win against sinners, you will let me know.” James quipped glibly.

“I think out of the two of us, you’re going to know the most of the fire and brimstone brigade,” she grumbled in response. 

James frowned slightly at this, but didn’t push for further explanation.

They chatted for a little while, slightly stilted and with the odd awkward pause. Neither talked about their father, though his illness and death had brought them back into each other’s lives. There was just small talk, about work and weekend plans and what had been in the news. 

“What do you know about martyrdom?” James asked, in a lull in the conversation.

“Well I went to the same Sunday school as you did,” Nell said, “but I rather think you overtook me with the theology degree. And you’re definitely the expert in Old Testament condemnation.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” James asked, offended at the second insinuation that he was of a similar disposition. 

Nell blew out a long breath of air before responding. 

“Nothing, sorry.” she smiled, although it didn’t reach her eyes. “Now, go on. Tell me what you know about martyrs.” she prompted. 

“Well martyrs are not exclusive to Christianity, of course.” James pondered. “Nor indeed to religion -- Socrates is considered by many to be the first martyr and his death was entirely secular.” 

“And is Christ’s crucifixion the most well known?” Nell asked, guessing the underlying trigger for this line of thought. 

“In the modern awareness, I suppose, yes. Historically and throughout art and culture over the ages, there are other more well known examples. Saint Stephen is commonly viewed as a Christian martyr, although he himself was Jewish. And there’s Saint Sebastian of course. And some scholars would also argue that strategic assassinations within political movements are modern day martyrs. Certainly someone like Martin Luther King is often viewed as a martyr within the Civil Rights movement, for example.” 

He paused and took a sip of his coffee, gazing slightly past Nell and watching the street outside. 

“I just don’t see what the connection is here between an art student and a martyr’s death. Though perhaps we’re reading too much into it. Maybe the symbolism isn’t so advanced, and it’s just a brutal way to torture and murder someone.” he reflected. 

Nell reached placed her hand over her brother’s larger one and squeezed it comfortingly. 

“Enough talk about work,” James declared, “You said you had ideas for a trip at Christmas?” 

“Ah, yes,” Nell said, taking out a folder from her handbag and placing it on the table, “If you have a look through this…” 

\---


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hathaway and Maddox take a road trip to speak to the victim's parents.

The next morning, Lizzie arrived at James’ flat, bearing takeaway coffee mugs and a paper bag with pastry grease already shining through. James opened the door and immediately headed back inside, trusting that his Sergeant would follow. He picked up a tie from the back of the sofa and started arranging it around his neck, lifting his chin as he tied the knot at his throat. 

“What time are they expecting us?” he asked.

“Around 10. Gloucestershire are sending family liaison, and they’ll meet us there.” 

They had decided the previous day that they needed to speak again to Michael Carr’s parents. The initial questioning had been fruitless. Having the parents to formally identify the body had been traumatic, and neither parent had been in a fit state to answer more than the bare minimum of questions about their son. 

Tie securely in place, James sat to put on his shoes, while Lizzie tore off pieces of croissant from the coffee shop bag, and ate them carefully, trying not to spill crumbs on herself. 

Shoes donned and croissant dispatched, James gathered his keys, wallet and phone from the shelf by the door, and took his coffee from Lizzie, following her out to the car. 

“Thanks for this,” he told her, gesturing with his coffee cup to indicate what he meant. 

She raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly. 

“I didn’t sleep well.” she offered as an explanation, brushing off the thanks, “I was too tired to make breakfast this morning, hence..”

“Everything alright?” Hathaway was learning, slowly, that unlike Robbie Lewis, Sergeant Maddox did like the occasional workplace chat about her life outside of work. She regularly offered snippets of social plans, stories about family members, and details of her holiday plans. Him showing an interest was expected by now, and he was slowly learning details would be shared whether or not he asked for them, and that it allowed him a small amount of conversational control if he proactively asked for them. 

“Hmm, yes and no.” Lizzie answered. Once they were settled into the car and she had pulled out of the side street and onto the main road, she continued. 

“I’m a bit worried about Tony, to be honest.”

“Oh?” Hathaway prompted. 

“He’s been distant. And we haven’t spoken much. I’m starting to think he might be avoiding me. But…perhaps I’m just being paranoid.”

“Well in my opinion,” James responded with his usual poker faced sarcasm, “as an expert in the field of interpersonal communication and romantic relationships--” he quirked an eyebrow and glanced across the car at Maddox; pleased to see his humour had hit the mark, and she was smiling slightly. 

“I believe the received wisdom is generally that you should talk to him about it.”

“That’s what my friends said. And my mum. And my sister.”

“Quite a consensus then.”

Maddox was quiet for a while, concentrating on driving and negotiating the roundabout to take them onto the A40. 

“I might not like what he has to say.” she admitted, quietly. 

James didn’t respond immediately, looking out the window, and down at his phone to scan for any emails with new information that they might need on the case. He watched Lizzie covertly as she drove, and considered what he could say to help. Despite his self-confessed illiteracy when it came to his own interpersonal communications, he was good at counselling skills. The coaching and empathy skills that he used with reluctant witnesses were something he had been good at for years, and one of his strengths when he’d still been considering the priesthood. The problem with a lot of friendships was that people were keen to share their own experiences and affirm their opinions to further a social bond. By actively avoiding sharing information about himself for so long that it came naturally, James was by default a very good listener, and skilled at keeping a conversation going. The flip side of that was that the other person had to keep talking. 

“Why, what do you think he might say?” he eventually asked, as Lizzie pulled back onto their side of the road after overtaking a slow-moving minibus, its logo proclaiming it to belong to the Oxford Street Chaplains. 

She blew out a long stream of air before responding. 

“I don’t know. That he wants me to move out to The States? That he thinks we should split up? That he wants to have a baby?” she kept her eyes firmly on the road as she spoke. 

“Well it’s unlikely to be all three of those.” James pronounced with levity. 

Lizzie snorted a reluctant laugh. 

“At least,” James continued, “you’d hope not. That would definitely count as some mixed messages.”

“I’m just finding the distance a bit difficult at the moment I suppose. It was ok for a while, but it’s getting hard. I mean, I know relationships take work, but I’m struggling, y’know?” Lizzie asked, rhetorically. 

“You’re telling the wrong person.” James said.

“I know, I know, I need to talk about this to Tony.”

“Well, that too. But also I meant that I already know. Why do you think I don’t bother?” James asked with a smirk.

That drew out another smile from Lizzie and she glanced across the car to roll her eyes at him. 

“I’ve always put that down to your monastic tendencies.” she told him. “Chamber music and frowning at things. Those are your main pastimes, yes?” she asked cheekily. 

He shoved her arm good naturedly, but didn’t challenge her. 

“What’s the plan for when we interview the parents?” he asked instead, changing the subject effectively to the safer topic of work. 

She took the cue, and they continued to discuss the case and the information they needed from Michael Carr’s parents for the rest of the journey. 

\---

James stood alone in the middle of the room. A small bedroom, slightly abandoned with a stack of boxes in one corner, gaps on the bookcase, and the bedding folded neatly and stacked on a chair, the bare mattress covered by a throw. 

But evidence of the boy whose room it had been were still there. Posters of bands on the wall, and a few items of clothing still hanging in the wardrobe. A collection of ornaments lined the window sill. In pride of place, a sculpture that Michael Carr had made for his final project in his Art A Level. 

The occupant had clearly intended to come back. 

James could imagine it in the summer holidays. More boxes stacked up, with kitchen equipment and extra bedding and other things that wouldn’t be used until the next academic year. There would be more clothes, and stacks of textbooks and a laptop on the desk. The boy had an easel and spare canvasses in his student flat, and no doubt those would take pride of place here in his childhood bedroom. The transition to adulthood cushioned by the support of this house and the people within it. 

Except he wasn’t coming back. The belongings would be returned to his parents once the investigation was done. But there would be no summer residence and no more Michael to fill this bare room with life. 

James was pulled out of his reverie as Lizzie joined him once again. Mrs. Carr had given her a tour of the rest of the house, showing off all the paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures in various rooms. She was clearly proud of her son, of the things he had made, and of the life he had been making for himself off at University. 

She seemed bewildered by what was happening, unsure what to do with herself or how she should be acting. James suspected that it would take her a while before she really grasped the idea that her son was gone. 

Mr. Carr on the other hand was already there. He had barely spoken during the short interview in the living room, photos of their only child looking on from the mantelpiece as James and Lizzie asked question after question. 

No, he didn’t have a serious relationship. No, he didn’t talk about anyone he was dating. Though of course they imagine he must have been: living the full student experience and all. No, there was no reason anyone might want to hurt him. No grudges with ex-schoolmates, no angry family members. He was just a nice, quiet boy. Loved his parents, went out of his way for his friends, and so very committed to his studies.

James’ heart broke for them, sitting in that house. The father detached from everything that was happening, eyes gazing out from a pit of grief. His wife making tea, and answering questions and all the while seeming to expect to wake up from this nightmare. 

“He was just a kid still, really.” Lizzie said quietly. She picked up a threadbare stuffed elephant from the bookcase, and held it up to her face. She examined it carefully, before placing it gently back onto the shelf.

James felt heavy under the weight of empathy, suddenly more determined than ever that they needed to find justice for this victim. For these parents, left bereft without him. 

“Come on,” Lizzie said, guiding him out of the room, “there’s nothing else we need here.” 

\---

Just as they were getting into the car for the drive back to Oxford, Lizzie’s phone rang. 

They had a second dead body.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team visit another crime scene, and James gets an email from an unexpected source.

“What have we got?” James asked, approaching the crime scene in a small back garden of a terraced house in Jericho. 

“Blunt force trauma.” Doctor Hobson told him, crouched over the body on the ground. “Ben Jacobs, 24 years old, lived here with his sister, Samantha. She found the body. She’s inside the house now.” Laura nodded to the back door of the house, next to the side gate where he and Lizzie had just entered the property. 

“Do we know it’s the same killer?” Lizzie asked.

“Not yet, but it seems like a safe bet. His hands were bound, and the head wound here on the temple is probably what killed him, but look at this,” she carefully pointed to a series of smaller bruises and grazes around the victim’s head and neck, and then to a series of stones and rocks scattered around the body. Each was marked with an evidence number and being carefully photographed by the forensics team. 

“He was stoned to death?” James asked, incredulous.

“It looks that way, yes.” 

“So one victim was crucified and another stoned to death. Is that a pattern?” Lizzie asked. 

“They’re both causes of death in classic martyrdom.” James supplied. “Jesus of course, but crucifixion is not uncommon on a list of famous martyrs. Stoning is one of the classics, too. Saint Stephen was stoned to death and is generally considered to be the first Christian martyr.”

“And there’s no chance it’s not just two separate gruesome murders in two consecutive weeks?” Lizzie asked, still sceptical. 

“Oh there is definitely a chance,” Laura agreed, “but I heard half the statement that his sister gave, and I’m pretty sure there’s a connection here.” she continued, dismissing them from her dead body. 

\---

“I know this is difficult, but if you could take us through what happened again that would be very useful” Lizzie told Samantha Jacobs kindly. 

“I stayed over at a friend’s house last night.” she said, her voice quiet but reasonably steady. “We were studying until late, and so she said I could just stay. She lives on campus, but our parents helped us to buy this place when I got into university. They said it would be better financially than Ben renting a place and me being in Halls.” 

“Is it just yourself and your brother who live here?” Lizzie asked. 

“Yes.”

“And do you know where Ben was last night? Who he was with?”

“I don’t know for sure, but he usually goes out on Thursday nights. He and his friends go to The Castle most weeks. Sometimes clubbing after, though he’d been doing that less lately. Said he was too old to go to work with a hangover now.”

“The Castle?” James asked, “Samantha, was Ben gay?”

“Yes. Why?” 

James and Lizzie exchanged a look, understanding now why the first officers on scene had made a potential link to the open murder case, even before Laura had flagged up the odd manner of the death.

“There is a possible connection to another case we’re working on.” Lizzie explained. “Did you or your brother know a man named Michael Carr? He was an art student at Brookes?”

“That’s the dead first year? It’s all over campus, but I didn’t know him. You think it has something to do with Ben?” Samantha asked, her voice rising with emotion. 

“It’s too early to say at this stage.” Lizzie reassured her. “For now, we just need the names of the friends you think Ben was with last night, and any contact details you have for them.” 

Newly armed with a list of names, James and Lizzie left with a second murder and many more questions left to answer. 

\---

James poked at the emails on his phone while Lizzie drove to their first stop: a school on the outskirts of Oxford, where Ben Jacobs’ best friend worked. 

James skimmed over an email from Nell, confirming that she would book the long weekend away they’d agreed on for early January, and then flicked back to his inbox. Among the All Staff discussions of birthday cake, and an angry rant about the state of a communal fridge, James spotted an email from an unexpected source. 

From: m.k.lewis@smith-jones-haskell.au  
To: j.hathaway@thames-valley.police.gov.uk; lvlewis@gmcmht.nhs.uk  
Subject: Greetings from Oz. 

Hello, 

Inspector Hathaway, I apologise for the email out of the blue. 

Sis - g’day, as I’ve learnt to say in these parts, and how the hell are you? 

I’m emailing you both to ask a favour. I’m planning to come over to the UK for a few weeks at Christmas, and I want to make it something of a surprise for Dad. Practical assistance on arranging accommodation etc. would be great, but also any hints on whether Dad’s actually going to go for this, or am I just going to piss him off? 

All thoughts and feedback welcome!

cheers,  
Mark.   
\--

James fired off a quick response, and had time to see a reply also from Lyn before they arrived at the school. 

 

From: j.hathaway@thames-valley.police.gov.uk;  
To: m.k.lewis@smith-jones-haskell.au;   
CC: lvlewis@gmcmht.nhs.uk  
Subject: RE: Greetings from Oz. 

Mark, 

Heathrow is only an hour’s drive from Oxford - given sufficient notice I can be available to collect you from the airport and hide you from your father until the appropriate moment. (There’s an adequately comfortable sofa bed in my spare room, should you also require shelter.)

I’ll leave the emotional insights to Lyn. 

Kind regards,   
James Hathaway   
\--

From: lvlewis@gmcmht.nhs.uk;  
To: m.k.lewis@smith-jones-haskell.au;   
CC: j.hathaway@thames-valley.police.gov.uk;  
Subject: RE: Greetings from Oz. 

OMG Mark, as if Dad wouldn’t go for this! Every time i’ve spoken to him since you visited him in NZ it’s Mark this, Mark that. I’d be jealous if I wasn’t also pleased. 

Although to be fair, you and Dad are so emotionally backwards that perhaps you genuinely don’t know…?

Skype me soon. Or hit me up on WhatsApp if you’re too busy to look at my ugly mug. Either way, I’m leaving this email thread just for logistical discussion. Poor James shouldn’t have to be witness to any more of the Lewis Family Emotional Ineptitude than he already has to… 

Lyn xx

\--

James closed down the mail app on his phone, just as Lizzie pulled the car into a parking space outside the squat 1960s concrete hulk of a secondary school and shut off the engine.

\---

“Any leads so far?” Moody asked without preamble once they were back in the office and starting to add their key facts to the team whiteboard.

“Ben Jacobs, 24. Lived with his sister in Jericho, last seen at around 11pm last night. He was at a pub drinking with friends, they decided to go on to a club, but he left after around an hour there, citing an early start at work this morning. Last seen walking home alone, alive and well. We’ve got the team trying to track him on security cameras, but so far we have no idea what happened to him between leaving his friends and ending up dead in his own garden.”

“It was the sister who found the body?” Moody asked. 

“That’s right. Samantha Jacobs is 21 and in her final year at Oxford Brookes studying property law and estate management. She’d stayed out at a friend's house after a late night studying so she had no idea her brother was unaccounted for. The body wasn’t discovered until around 10:30am when Samantha went out to the garden to empty the bin. The time stamp on the 999 call is 10:32. But Doctor Hobson puts the time of death at somewhere between midnight and 6am. She might be able to narrow that down once we have the post mortem report in.” 

“Ok, priority here is to find out what the connection is between them. If we are looking at the same killer than the victims must be linked. So focus on that for now. Find the link, we find the killer.” Moody instructed, with his typical micro-managerial style. 

Used to it by now, Lizzie merely agreed, while James wisely said nothing and simply retreated back to their shared office to work on the case. 

\---

“There must be a connection between them. What have we missed?” James asked. He was sitting slouched in his desk chair, his head tipped back and staring at the ceiling. On the opposite side of the office, Lizzie Maddox sat with her head resting on folded arms on the desk. She let out a groan of frustration. 

“They’re both male, under 25. White. Gay. Lived in Oxford.” Lizzie lifted her head to prop her chin on her hand. “But they are different ages, different life stage, different friends, family, work. They shared no hobbies or clubs, they have never met so far as we know. They weren’t even killed in the same place or the same way, and we have no idea how the killer was connected to either of them.” 

“Is them being young, male and white actually something they have in common? Or is that just statistically likely?” James asked, annoyed that they had two dead young men and no clue how the murders were linked. Only the bizarre, ritualistic staging of the bodies made them sure that there was really a connection. 

“What do you mean?” Lizzie asked. 

“Say you’re a murderer, and for some reason you have a grudge against the gay population of Oxford. Is it just more likely that your chosen victim will be young, white and male? Do we know if he’s profiling a type? Or she, I suppose.” James sighed deeply. His brain had thrown that out there but he was unsure where to go with it next. Or even if there was anything there or if he was just stating the obvious. 

Lizzie suddenly sat bolt upright, and then grabbed for their box of evidence, rummaging through the files and bags, looking for something. 

“What?” James asked, staring at her and wondering what he’d missed. 

Lizzie responded even as she continued to search. 

“You’re might be onto something there, Sir. They must have something in common and I think I know what it might be.”

“What?”

“Stick with your observation there. You throw a stone in a crowd in Oxford, and there’s a 50-50 chance whether you hit someone male or female. Whether they’re young, old, resident, tourist. Whatever. A random street, it could be anyone. But if you’re in the middle of the university in term time, they’re likely to be young and white. If you look at a crowd outside the Ashmolean on a sunny August weekend and it’s going to be an older group, and far more likely to be a coach trip of Chinese tourists, or whatever.”

James started to realise where Lizzie was going with this. 

“So if you throw a stone twice and manage to hit two apparently unconnected young, white, gay men then the chances are that you’re standing in a crowd where they’re a statistical majority?”

“Yes!”

“But they were killed on different nights, in different places. Jacobs had been to a club with a mostly gay crowd, but Carr hadn’t.”

“No, I know, but he had been to a club night, and…” Lizzie brandished an evidence bag with a flourish, “that student club night and the gay club, they had the same promoter and the same DJ.”

James’ curiosity was piqued, but he remained cautious. 

“How many club promoters does Oxford have? There can’t be many, and they must all have several regular events on their books.”

“It’s one more connection than we had before,” Lizzie protested, sure now that there must be something here to follow. “So say there aren’t many club promoters in Oxford, that means they might use just one small pool of promotion staff, or bar staff, or even bouncers. I’m saying we thought there was no connection with where they’d been the night they each died, but what if there is?” 

“Ok,” James acquiesced. “We talk to the friends again. More focus this time, did Carr or Jacobs talk to anyone in particular, was there a barman they went to for preference? Or, I don’t know, do they still have those girls selling shots in test tubes and photographers trying to flog keyrings? Anyone like that. People that our victims may have spoken to, or interacted with, but that their friends might have not thought were significant.” 

James checked his watch, and then stood up, reaching for his coat. 

“Come on, it’s only six o’clock, let’s start with Carr’s friends, most of them live together in that flat so we can try and catch them there.” 

\---

Later that night, James was sitting in his flat, clutching a glass of whisky and frowning at a case file that stubbornly refused to make any more sense when his phone pinged with a message notification.

 

Unknown number  
James, Just adding your number to my contacts. It seems polite to send you mine in return. Cheers, Mark.   
14:13

James Hathaway  
Then I will save yours in return.   
03:24

Mark (Lewis)  
Are you awake very late or very early? Sorry, I should have thought about the time difference before I sent that message.   
14:27

James Hathaway  
So late that it is apparently early. Don’t worry, you didn’t wake me. Difficult case. It comes with the territory.  
03:35

Mark (Lewis)  
Ah, I should have guessed.   
14:37

James Hathaway  
If you were a murderer, how would you choose your victims?  
03:50

Mark (Lewis)  
Well obviously I have a carefully curated list of all the people who have wronged me.   
14:52

Mark (Lewis)  
That’s a lie, btw. I am not secretly harbouring murderous intentions.  
14:53

Mark (Lewis)  
I momentarily forgot that I was talking to a policeman.   
14:54

Mark (Lewis)  
Please don’t arrest me.  
14:54

James Hathaway  
Ha. I am a sleep deprived policeman, who can’t figure out a case. At this point in time a list of enemies makes about as much sense as any other theory.   
03:57

Mark (Lewis)  
Not a straightforward one then?  
14:59

James Hathaway  
Two victims with apparently no connection, yet they seem to share a killer. Hard to find that killer if we can’t find the connection.   
04:01

Mark (Lewis)  
You should get some sleep. It might all look clearer in the morning. (Sorry, that seems like an awful platitude, but it’s the sort of thing Mum used to tell Dad when Morse had him working at all hours and he was claiming he didn’t have time for regular meals or sleep).   
15:03

James Hathaway  
Sound advice. One thing I have gathered over the years is that Valerie Lewis was a very wise woman. ...And that DI Morse was a self-centred workaholic.  
04:04

James Hathaway  
Also by all accounts he was a bit of a prick.   
04:04

James Hathaway  
Don’t tell your Dad I said that.   
04:05

Mark (Lewis)  
Your secret is safe with me. On one condition: go the fuck to sleep.  
15:06. 

James Hathaway.   
Sir, yes sir! Zzzzz.   
04:07

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My knowledge of Oxford comes largely from the show, some google maps, and other publicly available sources. I've taken great liberties with factual information about its pubs, bars and clubs, and the reputation and character of its residential districts. 
> 
> The email addresses used in this fic are made up. I have imagined Mark works at an global engineering firm, and those are often named for people, and i have imagined that Lyn's email might stand for greater manchester community mental health team, just because. I have no idea how the NHS or Police format their emails, and i am taking a wild stab in the dark to get a realistic email address but with no infringement on reality intended.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maddox and Hathaway follow leads around Oxford.

From: m.k.lewis@smith-jones-haskell.au  
To: j.hathaway@thames-valley.police.gov.uk  
CC: lvlewis@cmht.nhs.uk  
Subject: Flights booked

James, Lyn, 

I’ve booked my flight to the UK - itinerary attached. If it’s ok with you James, a lift from the airport would be fantastic. But do say if it’s too much trouble - I can get a taxi or a coach or whatever. 

Lyn - how does this fit with your travel plans? You and your entourage are still intending to be at Dad’s for Christmas, yes? 

Mark :)   
\---

James Hathaway  
Got your email. Fine to collect you from the airport. Sorry about my sleep-deprived ramblings.   
09:01

 

James typed a fast message in response to Mark’s email, and then returned his attention back to Lizzie. She was briefing the wider team on the sparse details of the case, and allocating tasks for follow up to various people. 

She was good at this, he reflected. She still lacked some of the confidence in her own abilities, but allocating work and getting the team motivated were areas where he was quite sure she out-performed him without even having to try. One of the drawbacks to being an introvert, he supposed, was that he would never be comfortable with the casual friendship that seemed necessary to get people on side. Emotional connection was something that he saved for a very few people, and when he went in he went all in. But until that point, even his walls had walls. 

He felt a faint flash of embarrassment as he remembered again the overly-familiar exchange he’d had with Mark last night. There was something about the casual style that the other man had that had drawn him in. A sense of familiarity without ever having met, drawn from knowing Robbie for so many years, James supposed. Add to that the odd liminal space of the early hours of the morning, where reality always seemed suspended in light of some other, more transcendental existence. Still, Mark seemed to have taken his ramblings in good grace, so the exchange was probably inconsequential. 

As Lizzie finished up the briefing, she approached James and the two of them ducked into their office. 

“We’re meeting with the club promoter at two o’clock,” she reminded him, “so until then it’s reading statements and trawling through our victims’ social media.”

\--

The club promoter turned out to be a young black woman called Lucy Carver, with a strong Birmingham accent. As a recent graduate taking advantage of the university support for entrepreneurial ventures, she had a small office on the Brookes campus, sparsely furnished. Still, she welcomed James and Lizzie in with professional confidence that belied her age and offered them coffee. 

“How can I help you?” Lucy asked, as she poked at the coffee machine to change the various settings. 

“Ms. Carver, are you aware that there have been two suspicious deaths in the past two weeks, and that the police are treating these as murder?” James asked. 

“Call me Lucy. And I knew there was a student who was killed. Found dead in South Park, wasn’t he? I didn’t know there was another one.” 

“A second body was found yesterday morning, killed in his own garden. There are some elements of both deaths that make us think that they each may have been killed by the same person. But as far as we can tell, the two men had very little in common, and we’re struggling to find a link between them.” Lizzie added. 

“Ok...where do I fit in?” Lucy asked. 

“The only link we can find between the two men is that each was last seen alive having attended and event hosted and promoted by your company.” Lizzie said. 

“Is this the sort of conversation where I need to have legal representation?” Lucy asked. “Is there a link to me or my company here?”

“We’re just trying to pinpoint a connection at this stage, we’re not making any accusations.”

“So what do you need from me?” 

“Can you talk us through how the organisation of these events works? How much you do, how much the venue itself does. Who provides any staff and where they come from? That sort of thing?”

“Well the venue will always provide the bar staff and security staff. Although I have been known to pull in favours with some of the agencies if they need extra people on hand. In a student city like Oxford, we’re never really short of willing bar staff to be honest. Most of the promotion is led directly by me, and then I will usually use between one and four extra people for flyering in advance and on the night. I have a team of about 10 people I get them from. They’re on zero hours contracts, but it’s all above board. I’m still pretty new at this so I’m growing the company slowly. But they like the flexibility of the job, so it works well.”

“What about things like event photographers, or people like that? Do you work with them?” 

“Not directly. There’s a few on the circuit, and they tend to get in touch to ask about upcoming events and let us know they’re intending to work. But it’s the venue’s discretion whether they let them in or not. And they’re all freelance as far as I know. Personally I rely on our happy customers and their social media to do the photographic heavy lifting. Creating a buzz with a hashtag gets the word around a lot faster than some after-the-fact officially published photos.”

“So two different club nights, in two different weeks at two different bars - what is likely to stay the same?”

“Three of my girls were working at the night when the student was killed. It was all they could talk about the next couple of days. The other guy was killed on Thursday night, so-” she clicked onto a calendar screen on her laptop, “that would have been Diva Night at Hercules?” she checked.

“That’s right.”

“I had my two boys working that.” Lucy said. “Justin and Tom. They’re students, and popular with the gay crowd.” 

“What other event staff might the two nights have had in common? Would they both have used agency staff?”

“For the bar staff, possibly. It fluctuates a lot depending on who they have on their books at the time and how busy they expect an event to be. I know the student bars tend to use agency guys for the doormen too, but Hercules only use their own guys. They had some problems with agency staff a few years back.”

“We’d like to speak to your promoters who worked the two events. Can you get us contact details for them?” 

“I’ll have to give them a heads up that I’m handing out their details, but it shouldn’t be a problem. I can email the details to you once I have their permission. And I can put you in touch with my contacts at the two venues if you like? They should have a record of who worked those two nights.”

Thanking Lucy Carver, they left, holding open the door for a young cleric in a dog collar on their way out. 

“I want to go and meet these contacts,” James decided, referring to the venue managers that Lucy had given them details for. “Let’s get something to eat then swing by The Castle. Then we can go to Hercules after.” 

\---

James slumped against the wall by the door as Lizzie rang the bell. Robbie Lewis answered it with a tea towel over his shoulder, and a bottle of wine in hand. 

“You’re late.” he told them, stepping back to allow the guests to enter. 

“We’ve been clubbing.” James informed him, walking into the living room and collapsing onto the sofa. 

“In which case you’re very early,” Robbie revised. “No one gets home from clubbing at 9pm.” 

“How do you know we haven't been out since last night?” Lizzie asked, cheekily. She collected a tray already set out with wine glasses and cutlery and carried it through to the coffee table. She placed it carefully down and then took a seat in the arm chair by the window. 

Robbie followed her into the room and began pouring wine from the bottle into the waiting glasses. 

“Laura will be back with the takeaway any minute,” Robbie said, “she’s going to be disappointed when she sees your car: she was hoping for uninterrupted access to the crispy duck pancakes.” 

“I will not apologise for my love of crispy duck, Sir.” James intoned, gravely. 

“Less of the Sir, if you please. I’m trying to be retired, remember?” Robbie admonished. “Speaking of which, how is the case going?”

“Badly.” James stated bluntly, taking a deep sip of his wine. 

“We’ve spent the day following up leads trying to link the victims,” Lizzie said, “but we just keep hitting dead ends. To be perfectly honest, we’re running out of ideas for leads.”

“Which is why you’re now moping around in my living room like a pair of wet weekends?”

The front door opened with a rattle of keys and the rustle of bags as Laura returned with the takeaway. 

“Well you did invite us for dinner,” James pointed out, “and in the middle of a case you know we’re either going to mope around or cancel and dash out to follow a lead.”

“Which is why I had my hopes pinned on double helpings of Chinese.” Laura called out, as she negotiated her way into the kitchen to deposit the food.

\---

The following morning, James received a call on his mobile as he was brewing coffee and buttering toast. There had been a call to the station following the news coverage of Ben Jacobs death, with an interested member of the public reporting that they had information. 

An hour later, James and Lizzie breezed into the interrogation room at the police station, taking a seat opposite a young man, dressed in a red hoody, a styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee ignored on the table in front of them. His dark hair stuck up in odd directions like he’d been running his hands through it, and there were dark shadows under his eyes. 

“Azim Ahmed?” Lizzie asked, glancing up from the sheet of paper in her hands. The uniformed officers had taken a preliminary statement from the young man before they had passed the information on to the CID. 

“That’s right,” the young man, Azim, responded. 

James took the seat furthest from the door, pulling out the other chair to help Lizzie sit down, as she was carrying the folder with the paperwork as well as her own coffee. Hers, like James’, in a coffee shop takeout cup and emanating a rather more appealing scent than the coffee machine sludge their informant had been given. 

“We’re told that you have information about Ben Jacobs’ death?” James asked. 

“Um, well, about Ben. I don’t know about his, his death.” Azim stammered nervously.

“Go on,” Lizzie promoted, smiling. 

Despite the severe atmosphere of the interrogation room, Azim Ahmed had come to them voluntarily with information, and so far was not a suspect. They had no reason to be anything but welcoming at this stage. 

“Well, Ben and I. We’ve sort of been dating. I guess? I mean. Going out for dates. I wouldn’t say we were a couple or anything. And then I heard on the radio that he’d been killed. And I checked online to make sure it was the same Ben, my Ben. And then I thought I’d better come forward because I knew him and I liked him and we were dating and I want you to know that I didn’t hurt him. I would never hurt him,” he emphasised the _never_ , “and if there’s anything I can do to help find out who killed him, please, can I do anything?”

“We’ve been through Ben’s emails, his phone messages, there’s nothing in there to indicate that he was dating.” James said. 

“That’s my fault.” Azim explained. “My work, I’m an accountant, in my Uncle’s firm. My parents don’t care that I’m-- Who I date. They are happy so long as I’m happy. But my Uncle, and my cousins… They are a lot more traditional, more conservative. I don’t want to compromise my reputation at work. If things had become serious then perhaps it would have been different, but when you are just casually dating, it doesn’t seem worth the risk.”

“You’re a Muslim?” James asked, making the leap of logic from the Arabic origins of Azim’s name.

“Culturally, yes. Personally I’m not really religious. My parents brought myself and my sisters up in a pretty secular way. But culturally, yes, and a lot of our extended family are practicing Muslims.”

“So how did you and Ben communicate?” Lizzie asked.

“With phone calls, messages. VOIP software and encrypted message apps. Just so if anyone went looking on my phone they wouldn’t see the messages. No awkward questions.”

“Sir, we do have records of calls between the two of them.” Lizzie addressed James, showing the relevant papers in the folder; calls between the two men highlighted in orange. “Various days and times, and various call lengths. No particular pattern so it didn’t flag when tech looked through the phone. And nothing for a week before Ben’s death. Did the two of you fall out?”

Azim laughed, a hollow sound. 

“Nothing like that. I went on holiday. A cousin’s wedding up in Glasgow. I went for the whole week, to see family and help with the preparations and then for the wedding itself. We agreed not to talk while I was away. My aunts are nosy and would want to know who I was talking to and why my parents haven’t found me a wife yet, and it all just seemed too complicated. We agreed to meet this weekend, when I was back.”

“And when exactly did you get back?” 

“Yesterday evening. I heard about Ben on the radio, as we got back in range of Oxford. I’ve been up half the night wondering what to do, whether I should come forward.”

“We will need to check your story. That you were in Glasgow the whole time; that you didn’t leave.”

“I-- Yeah, I can do that. Although, if you could approach the hotel staff, the caterers. My parents also can tell you. I drove up and back with them. But if we could keep it discreet, I would appreciate it.” 

“We can’t make any promises, Azim,” James said. “But assuming we can verify your alibi without bothering your extended family then we have no need to cause any issues with them.”

“Thank you. And--” Azim paused, fiddling with the cuffs of his hoodie, “if they need to find out, then I understand. Catching Ben’s killer is more important. I know we’d only been dating a few weeks, but I liked him. I think it could have been something really special, you know? And I have no idea what to do with that.” 

“Can you think of anything out of the ordinary that may have happened in Ben’s life recently? Anything that was upsetting him, or that seemed unusual?” James asked.

“No, there was nothing like that. He told me funny stories about his work colleagues, about his sister and his friends. We talked about where we wanted to travel to and our favourite films and books. Normal stuff.” 

“And do you, or did Ben, know or have any contact with a student called Michael Carr?” 

“I heard he was killed.” Azim answered. “And yesterday the radio inferred that there might be a connection. But I wasn’t really listening, I was in shock and trying to check that they were talking about a different Ben, or that I’d misheard. I’m sorry.”

“Neither of you has any contact with Brookes University?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Lizzie flipped through the notes in the folder again, and slid a sheet of paper over to James, which had a name highlighted. 

“Are you related to Rashid Ahmed?”

“No, who is he?”

“He was a housemate of Carr’s. We’re still trying to find out what the connection between them is.” Lizzie explained.

“And did the two of you go out to bars or clubbing together?” asked James.

“We went out sometimes, sure. But restaurants and pubs mostly. Or daytime trips to cafes or museums and galleries or out to the countryside. I don’t really do clubbing, and he was shy about introducing me to his friends just yet.”

“Ok. I think we have everything we need from you just now.” James said, cutting the interview short. His instincts told him that Azim was exactly as he seemed: a young man caught up in something that was in no way linked to him, other than by chance. 

“Thank you again for coming forward, and if you think of anything, anything at all that may be relevant or if you remember anything that may have been odd or out of place.” he slid a copy of his business card over the table, the one with him direct contact number on. 

Pausing in tidying up the papers into the folder, Lizzie suddenly asked, 

“Did you meet Ben’s sister?”

“No. He talked about her, of course. But I hadn’t met her yet.” 

“Once we have solved this and released Ben’s body, the family will be able to plan his funeral. Would you like… We can pass on your contact details?” Lizzie suggested, hesitant. “To Samantha. To let her know you’d like to attend, I mean.”

It wasn’t strictly protocol to do this. Despite his apparent non-involvement, Azim would remain a person of interest until they were able to conclusively rule him out of the investigation. But Lizzie felt terrible for him - dating under the radar and with his murdered boyfriend’s family not even aware that he existed. Some small gesture of humanity was needed here. 

“Thank you.” Azim told her, meeting her eyes, his own shining with unshed tears. “Please, yes. Thank you.” 

\---

James made a quick exit to the carpark following the interview with Ahmed. Lizzie took the paperwork back to their office and spoke briefly to the duty officer about getting a copy of the statement typed up and arranging for Ahmed to sign it.

Once she joined James in the car park he was onto his second cigarette in a row. 

“Sir, I know it’s not exactly ok to offer to put victim’s families in touch with potential suspects,” Lizzie began an attempt at an apology for her unprofessional action. 

“No,” James’ voice was rough, a slight catch in his throat. “No, I’m glad you did.” 

“Are you ok, Sir?”

“No. Imagine that? No one knowing you’re dating someone and then having to find out from the news headline that they’ve been killed. No way of contacting his family, just being alone with that grief. And for what? Because of a religion. Because of culture and tradition. As if those are more important.” 

“Tony always jokes that we got married because it was easier than writing a will.” Lizzie shared. “It sounds stupid, but he’s right in a way. It’s a shorthand to making your relationship as formal and important as the ones you have with family.”

James blew out a long stream of smoke and then stubbed out his cigarette on the wall. 

“How is Tony? How are...things?” he asked. 

Lizzie shrugged before replying. 

“Tense. Awkward. I don’t know. He’s trying to arrange to come back in time for Christmas. Or so he says. I don’t know if he really wants to though.”

James cast a sideways look at his sergeant. 

“Do you want him to, though?” 

“Yes. Also no. I can read him like a book when I see him in person. It’ll be the fastest way to fix this. But also what if I take one look at him and see that it can’t be fixed?”

“Then at least you’ll know.” James told her. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I suppose so.” 

\----


	6. Chapter 6

Mark (Lewis)  
Thanks for agreeing to drive me. And don’t worry about the nighttime ramblings. I get the same when I have insomnia.  
11:14

James Hathaway  
To sleep, perchance to dream.  
00:16

Mark (Lewis)  
Quoting Shakespeare at midnight. That’s never a good sign.  
11:20

James Hathaway  
You must remember what Oxford is like: we’re contractually obliged to talk in obscure quotes from Classics at least four times per day. Otherwise we are banish-ed. (Sorry, I don’t know how to make the little accent appear on the ‘e’ on my phone).  
00:22

Mark (Lewis)  
Obscure quotes? And yet you’re using Hamlet’s soliloquy? Wow, you’re going to be in trouble.  
11:23

James Hathaway  
Obviously I already met my quota of obscurity and now I’m making up my weekly requirement of Shakespearean quips.  
00:24

Mark (Lewis)  
Mandatory Shakespeare as well? I have to say, I don’t remember any of this being required when I was living there.  
11:29

James Hathaway  
Perhaps you were given special dispensation for being the son of a Geordie immigrant? Although you did recognise Hamlet’s soliloquy, so they must have made some kind of Oxfordian impression in your time here.  
00:30

Mark (Lewis)  
I went to a state comprehensive, and therefore have not received a gilded invitation to the inner circle of the Oxford Elite. The Shakespeare is down to an ex-boyfriend who was an avid fan. You’ll have to sign me in as a guest when I arrive.  
11:42

James Hathaway  
Ha! They wouldn’t admit me: I’m a Cantabrigian.  
00:43

Mark (Lewis)  
And yet you’re allowed to live there?!  
11:44

James Hathaway  
It’s why I was assigned to your be your Dad’s sergeant. They get distracted by his accent and fail to notice me.  
00:45

Mark (Lewis)  
I’ll have to cultivate my Aussie accent then. Or is being a tourist still a mark of shame among the dreaming spires?  
11:46

James Hathaway  
You’ll only be allowed to eat and drink in overpriced chain restaurants and themed pubs.  
00:47

Mark (Lewis)  
Gee! These Oxford public houses sure are quaint! I’m going to buy some of their ale in one of those cute glasses with the handles. (You have to imagine that in some really badly executed, hammed up American accent. I’m not allowed to mock Australians: it’s one of the terms and conditions of my work permit.)  
11:51

James Hathaway  
Well I had heard that Australian immigration policy was pretty strict, so I am going to assume that that is true.  
00:52

Mark (Lewis)  
I have no idea what to pack for my trip to England. Will it even be actually cold? I am led to believe by newspapers, facebook and my esteemed father that they don’t make winters like they used to. Should I expect snow?  
11:55

James Hathaway  
Cool to cold and damp, probably. I doubt we’ll get significant snow, at least not in December. Autumn has been quite warm so far.  
00:57

Mark (Lewis)  
Thanks.  
12:00

James Hathaway  
Why is the phone ringing in the middle of the night always some sort of bad news? You’ll have to excuse me: I have a crime scene to visit.  
01:14

Mark (Lewis)  
:( Good luck.  
12:15

 

\---

“What have we got?” James asked Lizzie as he approached the row of houses, taking in the fire engine but lack of smoke.

“Attempted murder, the flat and the victim were doused in petrol, but he was disturbed by a neighbour before he could start the fire. The victim is Luke O'Connell, he’s 23 and lives alone.”

“Is Mr O'Connell alive?” he asked, as the two of them ducked under the police tape and headed into the converted townhouse, following the staircase up to flat number 2.

“For now - he’s been taken to hospital. Signs of strangulation, bruises to the face and neck. That was all we got in the 10 second briefing by the paramedics.”

“But it’s the same attacker?”

“Looks like. Young, gay man, attacked and attempted murder in an unusual manner. Burning falls into the martyr pattern, doesn’t it?”

They watched the forensics team working for a moment, standing just inside the front door with plenty of ventilation from the stairwell, but the smell of petrol was still nauseatingly strong. 

“Yeah, that one counts. And it was a neighbour who raised the alarm?”

“Julie’s with her now. Apparently she heard a struggle, went to check if everything was ok, and scared off the attacker. I’ve not interviewed her yet, I thought I’d wait for you.”

“Ok. Lead on.”

Lizzie continued to brief James as they went upstairs to the top floor flat. 

“Witness lives in the flat above O’Connell, she’s called Liv Nash and she’s a bot--

“Botanist.” James joined in, at the end of Lizzie’s sentence

“Yes… You know her?”

“We’ve met before. She found a body a few years ago. One of my cases with Lewis.” 

“Small world.”

“Yeah.”

Lizzie knocked briefly on the door as they entered the flat. Liv Nash was sitting on a sofa in the middle of the room, a red emergency blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She was clutching a mug of tea in one hand, and holding a screwed up tissue in the other. PC Julie Davison was sitting next to her. The small kitchen was off to the left of the sitting room, in an open plan arrangement, and all of its windows were wide open, letting in fresh air as even here the smell of fuel lingered. 

“Ms. Nash.” James said, announcing their presence.

“Sergeant Hathaway!?” Liv jolted back slightly with surprise. 

“Inspector Hathaway now.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry. Congratulations. I mean. If that’s what people say.”

“This is my colleague, Sergeant Lizzie Maddox. We’d like you to take us through what happened, if you’re feeling up to it?” 

“Yes, yes of course. Please, have a seat. Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting to have a houseful of police officers. Sorry.”

Once they were settled on a second sofa, opposite Liv and Julie, Lizzie started the interview. 

“Take us through what happened.” she prompted. 

“I was awake. I have kittens. I mean. I’m hand rearing kittens. I started volunteering at an animal shelter, and we had some kittens and their mum was too poorly to look after them so I am hand rearing them. It means I have to get up in the night to feed them. And I heard Luke arriving back, and he was with someone, and then they both went into his flat.” Liv said.

“What time was this?” Lizzie asked.

“About 2 o’clock, maybe just before? I heard the car engine first. A diesel engine idling, and so i thought it must be a taxi. But then the engine went off, and two people talking approached the door, and then i heard them come up and go into Luke’s flat.”

“Could you hear what they were saying?”

“No - I could hear voices, sort of. The sounds and I recognised Luke’s voice, but I couldn’t hear actual words.”

“Did they sound happy? Angry? Loud or quiet?”

“Happy, perhaps? I don’t know. I assumed it was a date. I mean, getting dropped off then inviting the guy in. Though i think the tone of conversation was more friendly than romantic so perhaps not. But it was definitely relaxed, not hostile or angry.”

“Do you think they knew each other?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

“And then what happened? After they went in?”

“They were quiet for a while. I’d finished sorting out the kittens, and was just pottering about the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and tidying up before I went back to bed. And then I could hear raised voices and then a crashing sound. It was odd. Normally you can’t hear much between the flats. The sound carries in the stairwell but not from the flats. So it caught my attention. I was worried, and something didn't feel right. So I went downstairs and I knocked on Luke’s door. No one answered so I knocked again and said it was just me and asked if he was ok. And he shouted yes.”

“Was it definitely Luke?”

“No. I thought it must be, at first. Though it must have been the other man. But you can’t really tell a voice just from a yes. And it was weird that he didn’t give more of an answer. I didn’t really know what else to do so I headed back up to my flat. As soon as I closed the door I heard Luke’s door slamming and then running footsteps and then the front door. I looked out into the stairwell but I didn’t see the guy. He’d left the door to Luke’s flat open so I went back down and found him lying there, and the whole place covered in petrol. Which is when I called the police and the ambulance.” 

“Was Mr O'Connell conscious?”

“No. I’ve done the first aid training for work a couple of times. I mean we have to have it because of the risk of poisonous plants and working with tools and things. So I did checked if he was responding, and for breathing and a pulse. He was lying on the sofa and I wasn’t sure I could get him into the recovery position, so I just sort of tipped him onto his side and waited for the ambulance.”

“This other man, did you see him at all?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“And you said they arrived by car?”

“Yes. Like I said, I thought it must be a taxi but then he parked.”

“But you didn’t see the car?”

“No, I only heard it.”

“Anything else at all you can recall about the man? Did he have an accent perhaps?” 

Liv sighed, and closed her eyes, trying to picture it in her head to see if she could recall anything else. 

“Not really. He was English, generic home counties I suppose. Well spoken but not posh. I did think he sounded older. Not old. Just...older. Luke’s only in his early 20s I think, and this man sounded like he was middle aged. Does that make any sense?”

“Yes, that’s really helpful. Thank you. If you think of anything else, even if it seems small or unimportant, then you can contact myself of DI Hathaway at any time.”

 

\---

James Hathaway  
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.  
05:34

Mark (Lewis)  
Particularly bad one?  
16:38

James Hathaway  
Not even murder, yet. Intended victim is in intensive care but still very definitely alive so far.  
05:39

James Hathaway  
But there are unpleasant similarities to our current open two murders.  
05:39

Mark (Lewis)  
I just checked on wikipedia: it’s unclear whether it’s enough to call them a serial killer yet.  
16:41

James Hathaway  
Strangely, the taxonomic distinction is not my top priority right now.  
05:43

Mark (Lewis)  
Fair. I had a trawl through the Oxford Mail website: you have two dead 20-something guys?  
16:44

James Hathaway  
And a still-alive-for-now 20-something guy.  
05:45

Mark (Lewis)  
People are really taking this rage against millennials thing a bit far. I mean come on, a flat white in an avocado is poor grounds for murder. Actual bodily harm perhaps. But not murder!  
16:47

James Hathaway  
Ha fucking ha.  
05:47

Mark (Lewis)  
Paper also says strange manner of deaths, evocative of classic martyrs deaths? (They don’t phrase it as eloquently as I do of course). So, religious nutjob?  
16:51

James Hathaway  
I sincerely hope it’s all just a ruse: all our victims seem to have been chosen for being gay. I’d much rather arrest a jilted lover than some self-righteous bigot who is misusing a supposed force for good to commit murder.  
05:55

Mark (Lewis)  
Well that’s...horrific. All joking aside, wtf. It’s the 21st Century. Urgh. This feels personal now.  
16:56

James Hathaway  
Well as a Catholic, I would like to reassure you that most of us are not setting out to murder anyone. (And I’m taking it pretty personally too).  
05:58

 

The grey bubble indicating Mark was typing a message appeared and disappeared several times, before finally a response came through. 

 

Mark (Lewis)  
Good luck solving it. I’m always happy to listen if you want to have an angry rant.  
17:06

\---  
“It’s not unusual, in this sort of case. Given the circumstances, we ran tests specifically to look for date rape drugs, and given the level of barbiturates used, the memory loss is to be expected.” the doctor explained, her tone apologetic. “The technical term is anterograde amnesia. It’s similar to someone blacking out while drunk: basically they can’t recall the events now because their memory was not storing them as they went along. There are some cases of trauma induced amnesia where the brain closes off the memories as a defense mechanism, which certainly could be happening to some extent, but when someone has been drugged like this, we have to assume that their amnesia is more from the drugs and so he won’t be able to access the memories as they’re simply not there.” 

“Thank you,” Lizzie told the doctor, “and please let us know if anything changes.” 

The short interview with Luke O’Connell had been frustratingly unhelpful. He had regained consciousness, but remembered very little about what had happened. He knew he’d been out with friends. He didn’t think he’d drunk much especially. But he didn’t remember leaving, or whether he talked to anyone new. He was able to give them details of who he’d been out with, but they could shed no light other than to say that Luke had excused himself early citing a headache, had assured his friends that he was fine getting home, and then he’d left. They didn’t know where he’d been between around 11pm and 2am, nor how he’d got home. The only sighting of him on CCTV showed him on foot and then cutting down between two buildings. They failed to find him on the cameras after that, and there were no signs of anything amiss in the alley he’d gone into. 

This case continued to throw up nothing but further mystery at every turn. 

\---

Unknown number  
Inspector Hathaway. I just wanted to say sorry for not being more help earlier. Though it was nice to see you again. Just a shame about the circumstances. Liv.  
13:34

James Hathaway  
Please, call me James. Don’t worry about not knowing more - you probably saved a life; you should be proud of that. Luke’s awake, we spoke to him earlier. You can probably contact the hospital if you’d like to visit him.  
13:39

Liv Nash  
Don’t; you’ll make me blush! I’ll call them later to see about visiting hours. Work and kittens allowing.  
13:40

James Hathaway  
Well in among that busy schedule, it would be nice to catch up sometime.  
13:42

Liv Nash  
There’s an exhibition next week that i have tickets for. I’ll forward you the flyer, if you want to come…  
13:49

\---

James paused slightly before approaching the house. He’d known there was still a police guard on the building but he wasn’t entirely sure what he should say if he was asked why he was there. The current police officer was PC Julie Davison though, so at least he wouldn’t have the awkward experience of an unknown officer asking who he was. 

Though equally he supposed there was now an almost certainty that this would get straight back to his sergeant and probably to Chief Superintendent Moody. 

Keeping a key witness and friend of a victim informed about the case was above board. Dinner with a friend was certainly acceptable, and he had made his previous connection to the witness known to other officers, so he was following good practice on the procedure for identifying potential conflicts of interest. 

Of course it would throw up a whole lot of other grey areas if it turned out that this was a date… 

He greeted Julie with a wry smile and a nod as he stepped up to the door and rang the buzzer for flat 3. 

“Sir,” she acknowledged in return. 

The entryphone speaker crackled briefly, and Liv declared that she would be down in a second. Avoiding the question of whether he would have to wait awkwardly inside while she gathered her coat and things. 

“Going somewhere nice, Sir?” Julie enquired, in the pause while they waited for Liv to appear. Her face remained carefully neutral, but James knew for a fact that she was fishing for gossip. It was an instinct that generally made for a good police officer, but it was slightly uncomfortable to be on the receiving end. 

“Ms. Nash asked to speak to me this evening.” he prevaricated. 

Julie eyeballed him with a stare that indicated she saw straight through him. 

She was prevented from responding by Liv’s sudden flustered appearance at the door. She was wearing jeans and a coat, but a pair of heeled shoes. James was still uncertain about the tone of the evening, but he was feeling more reassured that he’d pitched his own jeans and a shirt outfit correctly for the formality level involved. 

“Hi, sorry, I was ready but Bethany was late to come and take over watching the kittens.” Liv told him, smiling in greeting. 

He smiled, and twisted his upper body around to indicate that she should precede him to the street. He risked a last glance back at Julie. 

“Have a good evening, Sir.” Julie told him, as he followed Liv towards the main road. 

\--

It was just a short walk to the pub that Liv was keen to eat at. They had a new chef and she’d heard good things about the revised menu, she had explained during the walk. And then from there it was only another 15 minute stroll up to the gallery where the exhibition of the historical development of botanical nomenclature. 

She had chatted away about her excitement for the exhibition during the walk and as they ordered food. Some of the manuscripts and photographs for the show had been loaned by the botanical gardens, and she’d got to know the curator quite well in the planning stages, but she hadn’t yet had a chance to see the exhibition herself. 

After a pause in the conversation once their food arrived, Liv changed tack. 

“I didn’t think about you knowing the police officer on the door.” she said. “I hope it hasn’t got you into any trouble. I can’t imagine going out for dinner with witnesses is the done thing, during in a case.”

James smiled, hoping to put her at ease. 

“It can be something of a grey area,” he admitted, “but the fact that we’d met before has been noted to ensure transparency and rule out a conflict of interest. So there’s not really any need to avoid each other. Although,” he grimaced, “I’m more worried about the station rumour mill, and at some point Inspector Lewis is going to hear about this and I dread to think what he will say.” 

“I liked Inspector Lewis, how is he?” 

“Attempting to be retired and doing badly at it. He’s officially a consultant and not a full time officer now, but he doesn’t like being idle.” 

“And he’s a stickler for the rules?”

“It’s more that he’s very nosy and has an unhealthy preoccupation with my personal life.”

“So is he going to think it’s a good thing or a bad thing that you’re out for dinner with a witness?”

“On the one hand, he’ll be thrilled and delighted and buying a hat for the wedding before I’ve even established whether this is a date.” he met Liv’s eye briefly, slightly afraid of the response but confident that he was reading it right. She grinned, 

“I hope it’s a date,” she interjected. Then prompted, “On the other hand?”

“On the other hand, the last time I had dinner with someone linked to a case, we ended up arresting her.” 

“I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything that you would want to arrest me for.” Liv offered. 

“Plus there was the time a couple of years before that when Lewis had to rescue me from a murderer’s bed after she’d drugged me and set fire to the house.” he added, making light of the experience. 

Liv looked simultaneously gleeful and horrified. She stifled a giggle behind her hand

“Please tell me your boss didn’t have to carry you naked out of a burning building?” she asked.

“Luckily the sedatives had kicked in before any clothing removal occurred.” he reassured. 

James leant back and took a sip of his beer, eyeballing the half inch still left in the bottom of the glass. 

“Do you want another drink?” he asked. 

“Just a coke, please.” Liv said. 

He nodded confirmation and then headed to the bar. 

\---


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not much happens in the case. Without distraction, James Hathaway has a tendency for introspection.

Each of the victims so far had been killed, or attempted to be killed, roughly a week apart. Once 10 days had passed following the failed burning, and then that stretched to 14 days, there was a slight decrease in tension among certain parts of the population of Oxford. Although that was coupled with increased confusion and frustration as the police failed to find any further leads to follow. 

Luke O’Connell was still unable to recall anything much leading up to his attack, and at this point it was now unlikely that he ever would. The confirmation that he had been spiked with a barbiturate was unhelpful as he had been drinking beer from bottles rather than glasses, reducing the opportunities someone would have had for spiking his drink, and all of the bar staff had been fully accounted for, no one leaving the crowded bar for more than a 10 minute cigarette break until at least 3am. 

He also still did not remember precisely when he had left the club, whether he had definitely left alone (though CCTV suggested that that was the case) or when and how he had made contact with the would-be killer. 

He had finally been released from hospital, and was staying with family out of town. The guard had been lifted from the building where he lived. Which at least made life less awkward for James and Liv. Particularly when he walked her home from their fourth date and she invited him up to her flat for coffee.

“Milk and sugar?” Liv called from the kitchen, as James leaned over the edge of the kittens’ playpen, watching one of them sleep while the other made an uncoordinated attempt at washing its face. 

“Black, one sugar, please. Do they have names?” he asked.

"The black and white one is Beagle; the ginger tabby is Endeavour."

"Ships! I like it." 

"I like that you get the reference." Liv told him, handing him his tea. 

James blew on the tea to cool it, and then set it down on the side table, following Liv's lead and taking a seat on the sofa. He turned to Liv, and rested his head on his fist, elbow braced on the back of the sofa. 

Liv mirrored his action and smiled at him. 

She reached out, and trailed her fingers along the back of James' forearm. 

He lifted his head up and reached to tangle his fingers with hers. He realised his hand was shaking slightly and huffed out a not quite laugh, clenching his hand into a fist briefly before taking hold of Liv's hand again. 

"Sorry," he apologised. "I don't really do this much."

"I don't think that's something you need to apologise for." 

He didn't acknowledge that, but instead leaned in and kissed her, hesitantly. She smiled against his mouth briefly and returned the kiss with more enthusiasm. 

They kissed for a while, before Liv pulled back slightly. 

"Would you like to take this to the bedroom?" she murmured. 

"Uh, yeah. Yes" James said. He still felt nervous, but he liked Liv. She was nice; she appreciated his intellectualism. 

And this was date number four, he'd done his gentlemanly bit: wining and dining. Talking about the abstract ideas, mundane anecdotes. This was the stage that came next, no question about it. She liked him, he liked her, and so inevitably they would progress to a sexual relationship.

 

Kicking the bedroom door shut behind her, Liv pulled James' t shirt off over his head, and then pushed him back into the bed. She stripped off her own top and jeans before climbing up on the bed after him, kissing him again. 

James returned the kiss, his hands settling on Liv's waist. He tried to force himself to relax, concentrating on the feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, and shutting out the anxiety he felt.

"Are you ok?" Liv asked, pulling back slightly. 

James didn't answer, but leaned upwards to try to kiss her again. 

"I'm serious: are you ok?" she insisted, concerned by the tension and silence from James. 

He still didn't respond verbally, but dropped his head back onto the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut. 

"James?" she asked again, sitting up; shifting all of her weight off him. 

He shook his head in response. 

"Here, sit up a second," Liv moved, giving him more space, and helping him to sit up and lean against the headboard. "Do you want a drink of water?" she asked. 

"No. I'm ok. Sorry. Thanks." James managed, his gaze fixed firmly down at his hands clasped in his lap. 

"It's ok." she told him, "can you tell me what's wrong?" she asked. 

"It's really nothing." 

"It...it seemed like maybe you're not enjoying this?" she suggested, hesitantly. "You're incredibly tense." 

"I'm just being stupid, honestly, it's fine. I just need a minute."

"If you don't actually want to do this, then we're not. End of story." Liv told him, more firmly this time. "If this is too fast, or you're not actually interested…" 

There was a long silence; James flushed with embarrassment rather than excitement. 

"Something I like to remind some of my friends occasionally," she continued, "is that it is absolutely never ok to have sex out of politeness." 

James made a strained noise, and covered his face with both hands. 

"I'm not offended or upset." Liv reassured, "I like you, and I think you're sweet and funny and clever, and incredibly good looking. But if it's one-sided then I need you to tell me. Ideally you would have said before now, but I'm guessing that you're not the best at discussing feelings..." 

"It's complicated." James managed to share, into the long silence drawing out in the room. "I do like you. I think you're amazing." 

"Is there anything you need to tell me? You're not giving me much to go on. Has there been a bad experience that is making this difficult? I'm happy to work with you here, but I would like to know what's going on. You can trust me, I promise." 

He slumped forward, huddling up to Liv and tucking his face into her shoulder so he didn't have to look her in the eye. 

"There's nothing bad. I mean, not like any assault or trauma, like you mean. I just...I don't do this." he gritted out. 

"You don't have sex?" Liv asked him. 

"Not really, no". 

"Do you lack the inclination, or just the opportunity?" 

"Both?" he said, lifting the word up into a question. 

"Have you ever done this before?" Liv asked, her tone cautious. 

James huffed in frustration again, a wry laugh just making its presence known.

"Yes. But…" he trailed off. 

Liv let the silence sit. She was starting to sense that she was out of her depth here in terms of figuring out what James was thinking, but over the course of their dates, she had gleaned that letting him fill silences was a better way to get him to talk about himself than asking direct questions sometimes. 

"I'm nearly 37 years old," he continued, speaking quietly, still hiding his face from Liv, "and I can count on one hand the number of people I've slept with." 

"There's nothing wrong with that." Liv told him when it seemed as if he was waiting for a response. 

"It's not that I haven't, or I can't or anything. It just doesn't really feature as a relevant part of my life all that often." he added.

"So dating me, accepting my invitation to come back with me this evening, is this just out of a sense of duty?" she asked, realising that there was some nuance here and she needed to be clear in their communication to avoid any doubt. 

"No!" he said, finally lifting his head up and looking her in the eye. "I really like you, Liv." he leaned in to try to kiss her again, keen all of a sudden to prove his point, but she pushed him away slightly, and continued talking. 

"Can I ask, it sounds like you're saying… would you classify yourself as asexual?" she finally asked. 

"I don't like labels." 

"Sometimes they're useful."

"I'm not _not_ interested. I like sex sometimes, I like you. It's just not usually a priority for me. I need to make an intellectual connection with someone before I feel a physical connection. And I want to have sex with you, just...not right now."

"Ok," she told him, using a hand on the back of his neck to pull his forehead against hers. "Ok," she said again. "How about we take things slow? See where we get to? Whatever you're comfortable with." 

James nodded, nudging against her and kissing her again. "How about this?" he asked. 

"This works for me." she agreed, letting him push her back down into the bed, kissing, hands roaming. 

\--

Later, Liv excused herself to the bathroom, and when she returned found James sitting on the edge of the bed in his underwear, reading a message on his phone.

Mark (Lewis)  
Even though I made a list of what I’ve packed, I’m still paranoid that I must have forgotten something. I swear I’m not normally a nervous traveller! Two days to go…  
11:18

“Anything important?” Liv asked, nodding at James’ phone. 

“Nope.” James told her, setting the phone on the bedside table. “Is it ok if I stay?” he asked,

“Yes, of course.” Liv answered, smiling. “I’m led to believe it is the gentlemanly thing to do, in fact”. 

Reassured of his welcome, James relaxed back into the bed grinning, “I think actually the gentlemanly thing to do is to follow the cues of the host, and make sure not to overstay his welcome. 

“Well then I am cueing you to stay,” Liv said “Now budge over,” she shoved at James until he moved to the far side of the bed, and followed him in, settling down tucked into his side. 

James broke the quiet in the dark room. 

"I need to take my contacts out." 

Liv's giggles followed him to the bathroom. 

\---

James slowly blinked awake, squinting at the digital display on the clock radio he saw it was still only 5am. 

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, careful not to disturb Liv who appeared to be fast asleep still, lying on her side, one arm tucked under the pillow, the other clutching the corner of the duvet. 

Carefully James extracted himself from the bed, grabbing his phone off the bedside table and his jeans from the floor, he left the room, pausing to dress, and crossed to the kitchen. He sat at the breakfast bar and helped himself to the phone charger plugged in there, opening his mail app to check for any important work developments, and opening messages to re-read the late night text he'd got from Mark. 

James Hathaway  
If it helps, I can panic about whether the sheets for the spare bed are clean, and if I need to buy special guest soap. Misery loves company.  
05:08

Mark (Lewis)  
Omg why are you always awake at ridiculous times? Go the fuck to sleep!  
16:10

James Hathaway  
I've been to sleep! I just woke up early, that's all.  
05:11

Mark (Lewis)  
Hmm. HMMMM. Whatever you say, mate.  
16:14 

James smiled to himself, and put his phone to the side. He found his shoes and coat, and grabbing Liv's flat keys from the hook by the door went out into the front street to his car. 

A quick rummage in the boot yielded his washkit, (stashed in case of unexpected work hours, along with a spare set of gym-wear, a towel, and of course the requisite first aid kit, police tape, and traffic warning triangle that was recommended issue for all plain clothes officers' cars.)

He also discovered a half-full pack of cigarettes in the glove box of the car and took the opportunity to smoke. His breath misted in the cold, pre-dawn air, lit by the orange glow of the nearby street lamp. 

Even the draughty stairwell was a welcome warmth after the cold of the morning, and finally back in the second floor flat, James happily shed his coat and shoes again, and made his way to the bathroom to wash, brush his teeth, and put in fresh contact lenses. 

By the time Liv emerged from the bedroom just after 7 o'clock, James was ensconced in the corner of the sofa, wrapped in a blanket and ostensibly reading the news on his phone, but actually watching the kittens play, tumbling over each other and frolicking in the playpen they were confined to.

"Morning," James said. 

"Morning," Liv responded through a yawn.

"Sleep well?" he asked. 

"Yeah, you? You were up early."

"Mm," James hummed in agreement. "I'm not always great at sleeping." he admitted. 

"Tea? Coffee?" Liv offered. 

"Coffee please," James said. "I can make it if you like?" he offered, scrambling up. 

"You're ok," she declined his offer, but pulled him in for a kiss instead. "Anything planned for today?" she asked. 

"Lunch with my sister later, but otherwise no." 

"Excellent. Well I need to do a food shop later; run some errands. But you can stay for breakfast." she ordered. 

 

\----

"You're a dark horse" Nell announced, as she took her seat opposite James in the bistro. 

He stared at her, somewhat taken aback. 

"One of my friends saw you on a date," she continued. "Candlelight, hand holding, the works. Last night." 

"Oh. Right. Yeah." he managed to confirm, still slightly surprised that his sister's friends would know him enough to report back to her on seeing him out and about. 

"So, who is she, what does she do, how long have you been together?" 

"She's called Liv. She's a botanist. We've been on a few dates."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"I don't know. We haven't talked about it." 

"I'm surprised. I've never known you to date anyone ever. I was starting to think that you just didn't."

"Well I don't, generally."

"Is it a priestly hangover then?"

James raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. They were interrupted by the waitress, who took their lunch order: goats cheese panini and sparkling water for Nell; salmon salad and a cappuccino for James.

"What do you think about human sexuality?" he finally asked, once the waitress had left. "Gay, straight, whatever, I mean."

"Well I think they exist." Nell answered, cautiously, "I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, if I'm honest."

"The Catholic view is that there's a right way to be." James prompted. 

"Doesn't mean it's true. The Catholic view is also pretty restrictive on women too," Nell countered. "No women priests, wives having to obey their husbands, not supposed to use contraception. It's not exactly up to date with modern social mores." 

"But what do you think?"

"I think that people are people. Love is a blessing, and that if everyone is a consenting adult then why do random strangers feel the need to get involved in telling who they should or shouldn't be with. I mean, for example I wouldn't personally choose to have sex with someone outside of a serious relationship, but I totally respect that other people do so." 

"So you don't think it's wrong? To be gay?"

"No. And I know you have your theology and your churchy friends and all, but I won't shift on that. Throw all the doctrine at me you like: being gay is not a choice, it's a fact. And if you don't like that then tough."

James laughed, humourlessly. 

"I am long past thinking that." he informed her. "I left it behind with the seminary. It's actually part of why I left. It wasn't just because of Mum." he took a sip of his coffee. 

The food arrived, and Nell murmured her thanks without breaking eye contact with her older brother. 

"James are you trying to tell me you're gay?" she asked bluntly. 

"You start the conversation by telling me you've been spying on me dating a woman, and somehow now you think that means I'm gay?"

"I asked you if you have a girlfriend, and you turn the conversation round to a philosophical discussion on the spectrum of sexuality; I think it's a valid question."

"So you think that sexuality is a spectrum?" 

"Of course: gay straight, bisexual, asexual, whatever. It's all real and it's all valid." 

"But everyone has to have a neat and tidy label, to keep things in order?"

"The labels are human nature. People like order. That doesn't mean people can't change their minds, or that they have to align their personality with a certain stereotype or anything. And you still haven't answered my question."

"Which question?"

"Are you gay?"

"Technically you asked if I was trying to tell you that I was."

"James! Must you be so infuriatingly obtuse about every little thing?" Nell asked, barely keeping her temper. 

"I don't like labels. Boxes. Whatever." 

"And is heterosexual one of the labels you don't like?"

James shrugged, and refused to meet her eye, a faint hint of a blush across the top of his cheeks. "I just don't find it relevant to me, that's all." he defended. 

Nell sighed, resigned to getting nothing more specific from him. She turned her attention to her lunch instead. 

 

"You were involved in the Crevecoeur case, weren't you?" Nell asked after they were finished eating. "You arrested Mortmaigne?"

"The abuse case? Not directly. But it was our murder case which uncovered the abuse."

"Did you...did you know? At the time I mean. What he was doing?"

"When we lived there?"

"Yeah,"

"No. I didn't. I've thought about this a lot: maybe it's why I was drawn to the police; maybe I had a subconscious memory." There was a long pause then. James spent some time playing with the teaspoon and the empty coffee mug, scraping the dried bits of foam from the edges of the mug. "He didn't abuse me, just to be clear." 

Nell glanced up at him quickly, then away and then back. James was certain that was what she had actually been asking. 

“I think that maybe Mum knew." Nell offered. "Or suspected something, anyway. I don’t know. I remember a few years after we had moved, and you were off at school, and I was bored and complaining that I missed living there. 

"The girls at my new school didn’t like me much, and there wasn't anyone my age in our new street. I complained that I missed living there, and she went off it. I didn’t understand at the time, and I don’t really remember what it was she said. So it could be totally unrelated. But in hindsight, perhaps she knew something was up? I mean, she could be pretty irrational at the best of times, but she was _so_ angry.”

"Her intuition, perhaps?" James asked. "I like to think that if she did know then she would have said something to someone. Mind you, that was what got one of our victims killed in the first place, so who knows." 

"I still miss her, you know." Nell informed James. 

"Me too." he admitted, taking her hand. 

\---

Liv Nash  
Hey, sorry it’s short notice, but I’ve got tomorrow off work after all. Want to hang out? Xx  
20:18

James Hathaway  
Ah, I have plans I’m afraid. Sorry! Dinner one evening next week instead?  
20:19

Liv Nash  
No worries. Just a thought. Dinner would be good. Wednesday? Xx  
20:19

James Hathaway  
Wednesday works. I’ll pick you up?  
20:20

Liv Nash  
Sure thing. Xx.  
20:21

 

"Who are you texting?"

"No one."

"You’re blushing. Laura, he’s blushing!" Robbie said, his voice gleeful. 

"No I’m not!"

"Is it a girl?" 

"Woman." James corrected, reflexively. "When they're adults, we call them women."

"Is it the lovely Liv?" Robbie continued, ignoring James' correction of his language. 

James looked accusingly over at Lizzie. 

"Oh come on," she protested, "I wanted to know who she was, and you weren't telling me anything. I had to use alternative sources."

"I'm glad I can provide such quality entertainment." James observed, dryly. 

His phone pinged again. 

Mark (Lewis)  
Singapore! Nice to stretch my legs at last. The next leg has inflight wifi at least, so that's something. I'm sick of travelling already. About time someone invented teleportation. Want to start taking bets on whether my luggage will end up in the right place at the right time or not?  
04:24

"Oooooh she's texting him again." Laura teased.

"You all need to get out more; if this is your idea of fun." James informed them, shielding his phone from them with one hand while he tapped out a reply with the other. 

James Hathaway  
It'll be fine. Chances are you will be reunited with your suitcase just in time for your return journey. Your father is a terrible gossip, by the way. Don't expect to have any kind of personal privacy while you're here.  
20:26

Mark (Lewis)  
More importantly: what are you doing that's providing fodder for gossip for him?  
04:27

James Hathaway  
Why do you assume it's me?  
20:28

Mark (Lewis)  
If it wasn't, surely you'd just be joining in? You are a policeman, after all. It's the career for the permanently nosy.  
04:30

James Hathaway  
Hilarious.  
20:30

Mark (Lewis)  
Now I'm dying to know what they're gossiping about. Did you buy new shoes? Rob a bank? Elope with a member of the royal family?  
04:31

James Hathaway  
Oh, so I see it's a hereditary trait then. All I inherited from my father was my nose.  
20:33

Mark (Lewis)  
Fine, be like that. ;)  
04:35

Laura kept an eye on James as he kept texting, only taking part in the conversation peripherally. Finally when he put his phone down on the coffee table and reached for the bottle of wine she snuck out a hand and tried to grab the phone. 

James' hand smacked down on top of hers, and he snatched the phone away. He pocketed it, and stood up from the sofa. 

He glared at her, and then at Robbie and Lizzie, before backing out of the room, holding tight to his phone. He stopped briefly to shrug on his coat and rummage in the pockets for cigarettes before excusing himself to the garden to smoke. 

James Hathaway  
You're all as bad as each other: I went on a date. Apparently it's news of the century.  
20:42

Mark (Lewis)  
So now that he's settled with Laura, he's living vicariously through your dating life?  
04:43

James Hathaway  
I don't have a dating life. With this new level of social scrutiny, I'm starting to remember why.  
20:45

 

He clutched his phone tighter as the door opened and shut again, and Laura came to sit next to him on the garden bench. 

"Sorry." she offered, "I was only teasing. We're all feeling bad about invading your privacy now." 

James didn't reply at first, just took the time to light a cigarette instead. 

"How did you know you were in love with Lewis?" he asked, once he had exhaled a long stream of smoke. 

"When you know, you know. I know it's not helpful, and it's infuriating to be told that. But it's not a thought or even a feeling. It's a knowledge, that fills you up."

"Like faith?"

"I wouldn't know: lifelong atheist, remember. Over the course of a relationship it does wax and wane. It's rarely plain sailing."

"So how do you know when to cut your losses, and when to carry on?"

"You don't, really. We're all just making wild stabs in the dark in the hope of getting it right. Sometimes it works out; sometimes it doesn't."

"I'm not sure I'm wired like normal people."

"Does that matter?"

"It might matter to Liv."

"It's early days to be deciding whether or not you're in love with her."

"No, I know. I just don't think i've ever been in love with anyone. I don't know that i'm capable of it."

"Well you might not have lived any examples of romantic love, but you're certainly capable of love more generally."

"You think?"

"Of course: your family; close friends."

"My family was a bunch of strangers who happened to live in the same house. This is the best my relationship with my sister has ever been, and half the time we're still at each other's' throats. And I don't really have any close friends."

"What are we, then? Robbie and I? We certainly love you, and consider you a close friend. I'm fairly sure that's the same for you too."

"That's different. It's comfortable. Feels familiar. Like home."

"And that's what love feels like." 

James stared at her, slightly in awe. She felt like if she squinted, she'd be able to see the cartoon lightbulb appear over his head as he considered this in a new light. 

\---

That evening, as they were lying in bed going to sleep, Laura snuggled into Robbie's side and said,

"I had an odd conversation with James earlier,"

Robbie made an interested hum, drifting on the edge of sleep and not quite up to forming words. 

"I don't think he realises that we care about him. He tried to tell me that he had no close friends. When I asked what he thought we were, it was like a revelation for him."

"Well, he's always been an odd one," Robbie observed. "Perhaps he doesn't have much to compare it to."

"Do you think he'll be happy with Liv?" Laura asked. 

"I think there's a good a chance as any. Do you not think so?"

"He's an odd one, our James, that's all."

"Ah, well. If it doesn't work out, he still has us."

\---

James Hathaway  
Cliched, potentially offensive question coming up: How did you know that you were gay?  
00:33

Mark (Lewis)  
Stock answer coming back: how did you know you were straight?  
08:37

James Hathaway  
I don't.  
00:38

Mark (Lewis)  
Hence the question?  
08:39

James Hathaway  
Hence the question.  
00:39

Mark (Lewis)  
Want to talk about it?  
08:40

James Hathaway  
No.  
00:41

James Hathaway  
Yes.  
00:41

James Hathaway  
No.  
00:42

James Hathaway  
Sorry, I shouldn't have asked.  
00:42

Mark (Lewis)  
No worries. But if you want to talk, you know where I am.  
08:46

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kittens: the kittens are named after research ships. The Beagle was the ship on which Charles Darwin did an expedition as a naturalist. Endeavour was Captain Cook's ship, and is of course a massive nod to Endeavour Morse, who canonically was named in part after the ship too. 
> 
> [Side note: if there had been a third kitten it would have been called Kitty McKittenface, as a nod to the Boaty McBoatface, which actually ended up being called the David Attenborough].


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark arrives in the UK, and James and Lizzie hear some bad news about their case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh. Still little development of the case, but omg I have been dying to explore some of these conversations for ages!

Sunday dawned bright and cold, and James went rowing at first light. He hadn't slept well, exactly, but perhaps slightly better than recently. Good food, and the extra large serving of wine had helped. 

He felt like an idiot for the message he'd sent to Mark. He was willing to admit that he was finding himself more introspective than usual, and the combination of running into Liv again, along with the case bringing up questions of sexuality and other people's acceptance… 

He shook his head to try and clear his thoughts, instead focusing on getting the rhythm of his rowing strokes even and smooth. There was something beautiful about being out on the water, and at this time on a cold December morning he had the place to himself. 

The river itself calmed him, along with the meditative action of rowing. He often felt closer to God, and more at ease with his faith here than he ever had in a church. 

There were various things that he wanted to get done that day: bits and pieces to follow up for the case; getting the flat ready for Mark's visit; some regular weekend errands. 

But for now, he was content to lose himself in the splash-slosh of the skull cutting the water, and the tranquil chattering of the river fauna around him. 

\---

It was several years now since Mark had been to the UK, but he still thought of it as home and was excited to get back and see what had changed and what was the same.

Even if the aeroplane did land on a miserable, wet and cold Sunday evening...

He fired off a quick text to let James know that he had de-planed and that he was on his way. 

The drive home was somewhat awkward. An easy camaraderie via text message didn't necessarily translate immediately into an easy familiarity in person. 

James was good at small talk: a carefully cultivated skill to overcome his natural introversion. But with Mark he felt he'd passed the level of polite small talk with a stranger, but he wasn't sure where he stood in terms of interpersonal interaction. 

Mark, for his part, was mostly exhausted and his circadian rhythm was completely disorientated from both the long flight and the time difference. 

They managed about half an hour of chat before Mark fell asleep in the passenger seat, only waking when James stopped the car outside his flat, a wet drizzle accompanying them indoors. 

\---

Mark was rubbing his hair with a towel when he heard the doorbell ring early on Monday morning. 

He opened it, wearing jeans with no belt, slung low on his hips. His feet and chest still bare. 

Lizzie stared for a moment, slightly taken aback by the sudden appearance of a half-naked man instead of her boss. 

"You're not Hathaway," she observed. 

"Nope. He's still in the shower. Can I help?" 

"DS Lizzie Maddox," she informed him. 

Mark stepped back to let her in, and closing the door behind them followed her into the kitchen. He stepped past her to the kettle. 

"Tea? Coffee?" he offered. 

"Who are you?" Lizzie asked, passing him the canister of tea bags in answer. 

"I'm Mark. I've never seen this side of the Sergeant-Inspector dynamic before; does this mean there's a dead body?" 

"But you've seen the other side of it?" she asked. 

Mark grinned.

"My dad is Robbie Lewis." he admitted, still half wanting to keep the mystery going, but sensing that Lizzie's patience was wearing thin. "James has smuggled me into Oxford so I can surprise him with a visit." 

"Ohh!" Lizzie nodded, catching on quickly. "I'll keep it under my hat." 

"Did I hear the doorbell?" James called from the bedroom, accompanied by the sound of drawers opening and closing as he started getting dressed for the day. 

"Just me!" Lizzie called back in response. "I'm going to drink all of your tea and eat all the bread." she added. 

"Fine." James shouted. 

"Would you like some toast?" she asked Mark, as she pulled bread out of the cupboard and turned to the fridge to retrieve butter, and milk for the tea. 

"Please." 

James joined them then, the longer hair on the top of his head combed down, still wet, and still fastening the top few buttons on his shirt. He was shoeless but in socks, a light purple, in contrast to his sombre suit trousers. 

"What's up?" he asked Lizzie. It was unusual for her to drop round without calling first, even if there was a death to investigate. 

"Julie called me this morning," she explained, passing over a slice of toast with butter and jam to James, having already given one to Mark. James took it, but immediately put it down and instead poured himself a mug of coffee from the pot waiting on the counter. 

Lizzie rolled her eyes, and took the toast for herself instead. 

"Apparently she heard that Moody is going to shut down our case. At the meeting this morning." she continued. 

"Seriously?" James asked, putting the coffee mug down. 

She nodded. 

"Fuck." he said. "Fuck it." he picked up the coffee again and stalked over to the back door, throwing it open and lighting a cigarette. Standing just inside the doorway, but blowing the smoke outside in deference to his guests. 

"Your murdered gays?" Mark asked, knowing that this was the case that had been causing James such stress during their short acquaintance.

"Yeah," Lizzie confirmed, raising an eyebrow at his phrasing and knowledge of their case. 

"Is this definite?" James asked. 

"Ninety percent certain: very reliable sources." Lizzie said. "Apparently he's under pressure to cut spending, and since we're getting nowhere with it…"

"And the fact that there's still a murderer on the loose doesn't bother him?" James snapped. 

"I don't like it any more than you do, Sir!" she protested, "No need to shoot the messenger!" 

"Sorry." 

"I thought you might like to know before the meeting, rather than going in blind." 

"Yeah. Thanks, Lizzie." 

She finished the last bite of her toast and sipped her tea. 

"I'm going to head in as soon as I've drunk this." she added. "I owe Julie a Mars bar for the intel., and I'll see if anyone knows anything more." 

"Thanks," James told her again. He smoked silently, sulkily, and drank his coffee. 

\---

Mark announced that evening that he'd booked a train up to Manchester for the day on the Wednesday. That he was having lunch with an old friend and visiting Lyn in the afternoon. 

"I'll be back late-ish I think. I've booked an open return ticket, but I'd like to spend maximum time with Lyn and Jack." he explained. 

"Oh. I have a date on Wednesday, so I won't be around anyway." 

"The lovely lady my Dad was teasing you about?" Mark asked. "You could invite her over here, a nice home cooked meal, seeing as I won't be getting under your feet. Though I'd like to meet her, sometime. What's her name?"

"Liv. She's called Liv." 

\-----

"I've always been ambivalent about having kids." Mark told his older sister, as they watched young Jack playing on the climbing frame of the park close to Lyn's home. "But I do regret that I've not been around to see so much of Jack's life."

"I think you've been an excellent uncle, for what it's worth. You've sent cards and bought presents, and you call a lot. I can't ask for more, really." 

"What about if I wasn't quite so far away? If I moved back?"

"Are you planning to?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Coming up to Manchester today - it wasn't just lunch with an old friend, like I told you. He's actually recruiting for his firm: they're expanding their team. So it was sort of an informal interview type thing." 

"For a job here?"

"Based in London or Newcastle, of all places."

"Will you take it, if they offer?"

"Maybe. I'm not sure yet." Mark fidgeted with his scarf, unfastening and refastening it around his neck, tucking the ends into his coat. 

"What time is your train?" Lynn asked. 

"Not 'til seven - I can go earlier if you want me out of your hair? Just James is inviting his girlfriend over for dinner, so I want to keep out of their way as long as possible. Not keen on being a third wheel, or hiding in my room all evening with my headphones in."

"Stay as long as you like. Just let me know when you want a lift to the station." Lyn told him, faffing with her phone and reviewing the photos of Mark and Jack she's taken. 

"It's funny hearing you call him James." she continued. "I'm so used to Dad just calling him Hathaway all the time."

"Have you ever met him?"

"No - we've talked on the phone a couple of times. He's taken messages and stuff, and I asked him about getting something delivered to their office for Dad's birthday one year."

Mark looked intently as his sister for a minute, then down at his hands where he fussed with the leather bracelet he wore around his left wrist. 

"Can I tell you a secret?" he asked.

"Of course…"

"I think I fancy him a bit. He's better looking than I realised." 

"Hathaway? Tall, blonde and gawky? Good looking?"

"Seriously: bone structure to die for, all intellectual quips and tailored suits. It's all of my weaknesses. All of them."

"And you're just casually living in his flat until I come down for Christmas. Hanging out when he's just in a towel. Chatting to his girlfriend over coffee. I bet that's fun." Lyn teased. She was half mocking, but slightly sympathetic to Mark's plight.

"Don't! I know: I'm ridiculous. I'll be on my best behaviour; I promise." he reassured her.

"You really get yourself into some situations, don't you." 

"Tell me about it."

\----

How old were you when you first had sex? James asked, playing with the ends of Liv's hair where it trailed down her bare back. 

"Seventeen. My parents were on holiday. My boyfriend and I got very drunk, and one thing led to another… How about you?" Liv shifted her head slightly where it rested on James' shoulder, her right hand tracing random patterns on his left collarbone. 

"When I was in my third year of my degree, and I found out I'd been accepted into the seminary, a friend and I made a pact." James told her. "If we hadn't had sex with anyone by the time we graduated then we'd help each other out." he paused. 

Then, 

"In the end I bottled it." he added, quietly. 

"Wait, so you never actually slept with her?"

"Not then. Although my friends assumed we were together, that summer. I was back in Oxford and she came to visit a few times. It rather gave the game away when she got together with one of them instead though. Apparently a real relationship with an aspiring indie filmmaker is a much better prospect than a fake relationship with an aspiring priest. After I left the seminary I looked her up; asked if the offer still stood." 

An alarm beeped on Liv's phone, and she rolled over and silenced it. 

"I really need to get going." she said apologetically. "I couldn't get anyone to kitten-sit so I need to feed them."

"That's ok, you said you couldn't stay." he got up and pulled on his tracksuit bottoms and a long sleeved t shirt from the drawer, while Liv gathered up her clothes from where they'd been discarded on the floor. 

\---

"Hello!" Mark called, closing the front door behind himself and dropping his messenger bag in the hall. He took his time, unsure if Liv was still here and if therefore they needed some warning to make themselves...presentable. 

No sign of Liv, when he got through to the living room. Just James, huddled over on the sofa, staring at the bottle of whisky on the coffee table, a hand over his face and sniffling. 

James gulped air trying to get himself under control before Mark saw him crying, but to no avail. 

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" Mark sat down and reached to squeeze James' shoulder. "Has something happened?"

"No, no. I'm sorry. I'm fine, really." he gasped, suddenly wracked with sobbing. Mark sat quietly with him rubbing his shoulder soothingly until the crying fit was over and his breathing back to normal. 

Once James was a little calmer, Mark fetched him a glass of water and a few squares of kitchen roll. 

"I'm sorry," James said, wiping his face and blowing his nose. 

"What happened?"

"Nothing! Honestly, nothing. I just...I don't know. Feeling overwhelmed I guess."

"Ok. Is it ok if I sit here with you? Until you feel less...whelmed. If that's even a word?"

James huffed a brief laugh at Mark mangling the English language, but stayed seated close to him on the sofa, silently acquiescing. 

"I was talking to Liv. Earlier." James started to explain after a few quiet minutes had passed. "About sex. And --I used to want to be a priest. I don't know if you knew that. I studied theology, went into the seminary-- and I always thought I would live my life above the demands of the flesh. 

"And then, when I'd been in the seminary just over a year, that second Christmas and New Year... I had a friend. From school. His name was Will. And he came to me that New Year's Eve in a state. He was having trouble reconciling his faith with being gay, and he and his boyfriend had had the most enormous row about it. He came to me and he asked me what he should do. 

"...and even though he was in a state, and he was in a relationship anyway: I slept with him. I slept with him, and then I told him we were going to Hell. Which in hindsight was not my best move. Lewis- your Dad- I told him once that it's why I quit the seminary. Not all the details, mind you. But the gist.

"And is it why you left?" Mark asked. 

"In part. I was considering it. If I'd told anyone I certainly would have had to leave. But then my Mum died just after. So they generally assumed it was down to that when I quit, I think."

Mark was silent for a while, processing this story and gathering his thoughts. 

"Wait," he started, "while I was on my flight here, you sent me a message to say you were unsure whether you were entirely straight, and now you're telling me that the first time you had sex it was with a guy?"

"It is a source of confusion, yes." James managed dryly.

"Can I ask what your evidence then is for being heterosexual?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"With whom you're having sex?" 

"Yes."

"And...you enjoy that?" Mark asked. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on with James, but clearly dating a woman had brought up a lot of questions for him about his sexuality, but also sitting in the dark crying after a date with said woman was not a sign that things were going well. 

James twisted his face at that, clearly grappling with something. Mark waited him out.

"I don't dislike it," was all James finally managed. 

"Oh, wow. Joy and rapture. How was that for you, darling? Did you feel the earth move? Well it wasn't terrible! Such a compliment." he mocked, trying to get through to James and work out what the underlying issue here was. There so clearly was one, radiating off James like a beacon.

"Piss off." James grumbled, without heat. He shoved half heartedly at Mark's arm to stop the mocking. 

"And have there been others?"

"Other women? Sure, one or two over the years."

"Any other men?" 

"Not really. It's... It's complicated."

"You know people can be bisexual, right? That's allowed. You don't have to limit yourself, or feel guilty for crossing some sort of gendered boundary."

"I know that. I do."

"But?"

"You weren't raised with religion, were you?"

"Not really. We used to go to church for Easter and Christmas carols. Church parade when I was in the Scouts. But it wasn't a big deal. Lyn calls it C-of-A: Church of Agnostics." 

"It's always been in my life. For the most part it's a good thing. But, it has been problematic, occasionally. The Church and its doctrine, particularly."

"It's not historically been big on queer lifestyles you mean?" Mark asked, his tone wry.

"Indeed. And when I...after I left the priesthood, I genuinely believed I was going to Hell. That somehow my mother must have known what I had done, and that it was my fault that she died." James rubbed his hands over his face, tiredly. "I don't think that any more," he reassured Mark, who looked concerned.

"I don't need to start googling for therapists who specialise in internalised homophobia then?" Mark asked. 

James pulled a face at that. 

"I think I'm broken. I'm not like other people." he admitted, barely audibly.

"What do you mean?" Mark asked, equally quietly. 

"Liv asked if I was asexual. The first time we… well, we didn't, actually." 

"It's ok if you are, you know."

"It doesn't fit. There's all these boxes, and labels, and people are obsessed with assigning them. But none of them are right. I am more than capable of desire and of acting on that. But it seems like everywhere I turn I'm getting it wrong, and I think I'm missing something but I don't know what that is. Everyone else instinctively knows it and they don't realise what it is I'm missing so they can't explain it to me; and I can't ask because I don't know what it is that I'm missing either."

Frustrated and emotional, James looked to Mark for answers. Found Mark was watching him intently. 

Admittedly James hadn't really talked much about any of these feelings with anyone before; he'd had little opportunity, and no one with whom he felt able to confess this, to admit his vulnerability. But here and now he felt safe, and he felt listened to. 

No, not just listened to… 

This was one of so very few occasions in his life where he actually felt he was being _heard_. 

Suddenly overwhelmed by this intent concentration; the idea that he was talking and someone was understanding, he reached out and gripped Mark's arm, pulling him closer and kissing him. 

Somewhat startled, it took Mark a moment for his brain to catch up, and he found himself returning the kiss based on instinct alone. Realising that this was probably a spectacularly bad idea, he pulled away, grabbing James's hand to anchor him before James panicked and tried to run away. 

"Not a good idea," Mark murmured. "You're upset, and tired, and still trying to work some things out." 

"I'm sorry," James said, not looking him in the eye. His body language suddenly closed down as he twisted away, and pulled his hand out of Mark's grip. 

"Hey, it's ok. We all do rash things occasionally." Mark tried to reassure him.

"I'm sorry." James said again, as he stood up and made a beeline for his bedroom.

"It's really ok, I promise." Mark called after him. The only response was the soft click of the bedroom door closing. 

"Well, fuck." Mark muttered to the empty room. 

\----


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuesday 19th December...

“Had you planned anything in particular? For today?” James asked Mark over breakfast the following Tuesday. 

The intervening days after James had tried to kiss Mark had been tense, on Mark’s part at least. 

James for his part had been acting as if nothing had happened so effectively that Mark was half-worried he’d imagined the whole thing. Only James keeping his distance and being excessively polite reassured him. It was like a sudden shift from staying with an old friend to being hosted by a polite but standoffish stranger. 

“Not really,” Mark answered, with a frown. 

“I know Robbie usually takes flowers,” James continued “but he’s definitely due in the office today so there’ll be a window of opportunity if you wanted to go to the cemetery.”

Mark felt his heart rate shoot up, and he openly stared at James. He knew what today was of course. He could never not know. The date stared out at him from calendars, same as her birthday did. 

But no one else had ever acknowledged it like this. Just a calm, matter of fact mention. That his grief was a regular part of him along with everything else. That he could be utterly paralysed with sadness at the memory of what he’d lost. 

A few of his friends in Australia knew that he’d lost his Mum of course. They remembered to be careful around mother’s day; to tread carefully when talking about family plans. 

But here was James, who had never known her at all, but just slotted this terrible anniversary into his personal lexicon. A day to navigate carefully, and respect, but also acknowledge and honour. 

Mark realise he was still staring and the silence was drawing on for an uncomfortable length of time. He swallowed and cleared his throat before answering, voice still cracking slightly.

“I didn’t know you knew it was today.” 

James ducked his head slightly, looking faintly embarrassed. 

“I have experience of wrangling Lewises. You pick up a thing or two over the years.” 

“Thank you.” Mark told him earnestly. 

James looked bemused for a second and then nodded once, briefly. He twisted away to pour himself a second mug of coffee from the cafetière and tapped at his phone, doing his morning email check. 

They sat quietly for a while, both focused on toast and coffee. James tapping and swiping at his phone screen, while Mark squinted at a sudoku puzzle in yesterday’s newspaper. 

Suddenly, James made a surprised noise and sat up straighter. 

“Everything ok?” 

“Hmm? Oh. Yes. Just a potential lead on our case. Not that CS Moody is going to want to hear it. An old friend of mine has sent me some stuff about a recent rise in drinks being spiked. Though it’s not hugely unusual for the time of year.” James twisted his face in distaste. “Well, I’m sure Lizzie and I can poke around even if Moody doesn’t think much of it.” 

\---

James’s prediction of Moody’s disinterest had proven accurate. He was keen for the team to move on from these suspicious deaths: adamant that the survival of the final attempted victim had successfully scared their murderer off. 

But nonetheless James was determined to solve the case. He cancelled his prearranged date with Liv, briefed Lizzie on his plan, and dragged Mark along to the bar where the Oxford LGBT Society was having its Christmas party. If there was going to be another attack, this was an obvious target. 

 

They'd been at the bar for four hours, and still no sign of anything amiss. James was getting sick of drinking tonic water, and Mark was starting to think he maybe should have been alternating his alcoholic drinks with soft drinks. 

Mark had just excused himself to use the toilets when James heard his name. 

"Is this your police presence then? You and a tattooed hipster propping up the bar?"

"JohnJo, hi," James twisted round to greet the newcomer. "I know you know that the investigation has been scaled down on this. That is why you emailed me this morning, I assume."

"I emailed you because you and your colleagues don't seem to have been able to put together a sudden increase in reports of young gay men having their drinks spiked with these murders. Call yourself a detective."

"You say it's a sudden increase. I spoke to my contact at the JR. They've had a tiny number of incidents. You can say it's a 200% rise all you want: it's still three people rather than one that have actual blood test to show a level of barbiturates. That's not a pattern, that's a statistical fluctuation. Not an anomaly so much as a sad indictment of the modern attitude to Christmas.”

"And all of them have been young, gay men. Like your murder victims."

"I know. You told me that this morning."

"Yet you don't seem to be taking it very seriously." 

"I'm here, aren't I? I even cancelled a date to be here."

"You? A date? Is this one a fake relationship too?"

"Hilarious. Don't try and steal this one as well, mind."

"I'd hoped you might be able to generate a bit more of a police presence if I'm honest. But I don't get the impression that we're secretly surrounded by undercover police."

"I'm doing my best, JohnJo. I've asked my boss for more support. My sergeant is on standby. I'm here. I want to catch this guy as much as you do, I promise."

James clapped him on the shoulder, and left the main bar area, heading towards the quieter corridor that led to the toilets. He stood to the side to let a trio of giggling young women past, while tapping out a message to send to Maddox. 

James Hathaway  
All still seems ok here. Spoken to our anonymous source - he's hanging around but hasn't seen anything suspicious either. Might call it a night soon.  
22:47

Lizzie Maddox  
Roger that. Keep me posted.  
22:48

He pocketed his phone and glanced up, just as Mark reappeared from the toilets. His dark hair was damp and curling around his forehead, where he'd splashed his face with water. 

He came to stand next to James and leaned against the wall by him. 

"I think I might be drunk." Mark admitted. 

James snorted and nodded in confirmation. 

"You have been putting them away." he informed Mark, sagely. 

"It's ridiculous - I told myself I wouldn't be drunk while I was hanging out with you anyway." 

James tipped his head sideways to look at Mark and frowned in puzzlement. 

"Dangerous," Mark murmured, turning sideways to look at James. 

"I don't-" James started to say. 

He fell quiet as Mark reached a hand and laid it on his forearm. James stared down at the hand on his arm, frozen in place. 

Mark stepped closer, crowding James against the wall, and sliding the hand up James' arm to clutch at his shoulder. 

"The thing is, James, I really like you, and the other day, when you kissed me--"

"James!" 

He was cut off by the arrival of a third party. James all but shoved him away and shrank back, looking alarmed. 

"Liv! What are you doing here?"

"Oh, shit." Mark muttered under his breath. It was clear from the expression on Liv's face that she had caught a little of the exchange between himself and James and was in no doubt as to its nature.

James looked faintly worried, a pink tinge high on his cheeks was betraying him, but he was clearly trying to play it down. 

"I'm out with friends. Seeing as you told me you were busy. With work." she said flatly. 

"It is work," James protested. 

Mark excused himself wordlessly, banging the side door to the club open, leaving James and Liv to talk. 

"He just said that you kissed him." she stated bluntly. 

"No, well yes. It was a mistake. I was upset, and confused. That's not...I'm not here on a date, Liv. This is about work, I promise."

"I've never found myself so upset that I've gone round kissing people I'm not attracted to. Are you gay, James? Is that why you've been reluctant to have sex?" 

"No! I'm not-- I wouldn't be dating you if I was gay, Liv.

"Ok, I'll rephrase the question: Are you straight, James?"

He sighed and pressed a palm to his forehead. 

"I can't talk about this right now."

"What do you want, James?" Liv asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

"I don't know." 

"I think perhaps you need to think long and hard about that then, and maybe we can talk when you've decided? I need to go and find my friends. Call me tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Yes, I will. And Liv? I'm honestly trying to do the right thing here."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight, James." she pushed past him and ducked into the Ladies, the door swinging shut behind her. 

 

\---

 

"Are you ok?"

Mark looked up at the young woman approaching him, she wore the branded fleece marking her as a Street Chaplain, complete with a photo ID on a lanyard, and was carrying a rucksack. 

"I'm fine," Mark assured her. "Just feeling a bit stupid right now. And I'm maybe drunker than should be." 

"My name is Annie. Would you like to chat for a little while?" she asked

"I'm Mark. But I'm not that big on Jesus, if that's what this is." he cautioned. 

"I leave the evangelism to others," she told him, "Just a friendly listening ear here. Would you like a drink of water?" she asked, de-shouldering and rummaging in the rucksack. 

"That might be a good idea, actually. Thanks." 

"Oh, hang on," realising she was out of water bottles, she jogged back along to their branded van, and snagged a couple of bottles from another chaplain's bag. 

"Here," she offered, cracking the seal on the lid and handing the water over. 

"Thanks."

"So what's got you feeling stupid then?" 

"I think I just accidently made a pass at a friend, and then his girlfriend interrupted us." 

"Well that sounds complicated. Do you want to talk about it?"

Mark looked at her for a moment, and then began to talk.

"I've been living abroad for the past few years. And I'm home for Christmas to see my family, and this friend has been helping me to arrange it. I haven't actually known him long - he's a work friend of my Dad's. But we've been texting and emailing while I've arranged the trip, and he's been kind enough to let me stay with him. And -- you know when you talk to someone and you just click straight away? It's like that. But also it turns out that he's incredibly good looking as well as a really nice guy, and before I know it, I have this ridiculous crush."

Mark swigged from the water bottle and settled back into a comfortable lean against the railings that led from from the back door of the bar, where he'd made his escape, and continued.

"Which frankly is insane, because I'm 31 not 13, and I really should be better in control of my life. But I'm going through quite a lot of introspection stuff lately, I have a little nephew over here now, and so I'm questioning a lot of things about my life, and thinking of moving back. And apparently also that means I'm prone to get drunk and put the moves on my new friend, and land him in it with his girlfriend. And now I'm hiding out here like the cowardly idiot that I am, and pouring my heart out to a stranger."

Annie took a moment to consider all of this, nodding along to show she was actively listening.

"That sounds like a lot." she finally offered. 

Mark giggled slightly hysterically. 

"Yeah, it really is isn't it." 

"We can sit here for a while if you want?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that would be nice. Thanks."

The noise of the side door slamming shut again drew his attention. James was stalking along the side street towards them, face impassive. 

"There you are," he told Mark, "I thought you might have left."

"And gone where?" Mark asked, "You have the keys, and I don't even know if I'm welcome in your house any more." he was starting to feel a little odd, dizzy and lightheaded. The fresh air after the alcohol. He really was out of practice drinking in a heavy session. 

"Is this your friend?" Annie asked. 

"Yep," 

"I'm Annie," she introduced herself to James, offering her hand for him to shake. 

" _Give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you._ " he said, by way of greeting. 

"Indeed." Annie responded, she squinted at him curiously, not used to encountering Bible verses from the usual crowds she encountered during street chaplain work. 

James didn't elaborate, but turned to Mark, face still unreadable. 

"Come on," he said finally, "We're going home."

"Is that ok with you?" Annie interjected, touching Mark's arm lightly.

"It's fine. Thank you. For listening, I mean. And for the water." he saluted her with the almost empty bottle, and turned to lead the way back to where James had parked the car. 

\---

They were quiet until they got into the car, and James pulled out into the quiet street. Late enough that the rush hour was over, but not yet prime time for taxis to be crawling over the city, touting for trade. 

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-" Mark broke off, and stared at the tense muscle of James' clenched jaw. "Is everything ok? With your girlfriend, I mean." he asked instead. 

"I have absolutely no idea."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." 

\---

Mark felt dizzy by the time they pulled up outside James’ flat. 

“I must be out of practice drinking,” he told James as it took him two goes to unclip his seatbelt. “It’s gone straight to my head.”

James frowned at him, but said nothing. Once inside he poured a glass of water for Mark and set it on the coffee table. 

Mark meanwhile had flopped down onto the sofa and was watching as James pottered around the room, switching on lamps and tidying up a couple of books. 

“Oxford’s so pretty.” Mark declared. 

James came back over then,

“Drink the water, lightweight.” he instructed, holding out the glass. 

Mark pushed himself upright and covered James’ hand with his own, pulling the glass towards him and drinking from it still held in James’ grip. 

“You’re also very pretty.” Mark told James, when he’d finished drinking. He still had his hand over James’ on the glass. 

“Are you feeling ok?” James asked. This close up, he could see the glazed look in Mark’s eyes, and his pupils dilated beyond what the dim lighting could explain. 

“This is like being high,” Mark told him, and then giggled. Too high pitched. “Shhh!” he added. “You’re a policeman!” 

More giggling, but he was unresisting as James disentangled their hands, set aside the water glass and took Mark’s pulse. 

Faster than it really should be for someone reclining on a sofa. 

“Mark, you didn’t take anything while we were at that bar did you?” 

Mark didn’t respond, though he was still looking at James. 

“Mark? Did you hear me? Off the record, I promise: I just need to know if you’ve taken anything?”

Mark shook his head no. 

“I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.” he said, a petulant note in his tone. 

“This can’t just be the drinks,” James told him, “I think I should take you to the hospital, get you checked out. Is that ok with you?” 

Already James was moving, getting his phone from the mantlepiece and grabbing his car keys. 

“Come on up,” James instructed, helping to manhandle Mark to his feet. But Mark was listing to the side, a heavy weight with uncooperative legs.

“I feel sick,” he complained, just as his knees buckled and James dropped him back down onto the sofa, controlling the fall and pulling Mark over onto his side in case he did vomit. 

Mark groaned, but couldn’t seem to be able to keep his eyes open or focus on James talking to him. 

“Shit.” James muttered, dialling 999. 

\---

Laura had a strange relationship with the anniversary of her boyfriend’s late wife’s death. On the one hand it wasn’t her grief or her loss to mourn, but on the other hand she loved Robbie and wanted to be there for him emotionally. 

It wasn’t a jealousy thing. There were a couple of photos of Val around the house, just as there were some of Robbie’s kids too. And when she and Robbie had decided to move in together she’s taken herself off to the cemetery one lunch break, and had a quiet word with Val’s headstone, promising that she would respect and care for him. She’d felt very stupid chatting to a slab of marble with some human remains underneath it: but then again she quite often talked to her patients so it wasn’t hugely different. 

But Robbie seemed to be coping well this year. He’d been to lay some flowers on the grave earlier in the day; and he’d emailed Mark and called Lyn to tell them he was thinking of them. Laura was on call but so far things had been quiet as they’d had a nice evening sitting in front of the TV. Robbie was just clearing up his wine glass and her mug when her phone started to ring, vibrating its way across the coffee table loudly. 

Laura groaned and reached for it, expecting a call out and glad that at least it wasn’t raining. She was surprised though when the display read _James Hathaway_. 

“James, what can I do for you?,” she answered the call. 

“You need to bring Robbie to the hospital,” James told her, with no preamble. Calm, professional. 

“What’s happened?” her jovial greeting quickly transformed into a businesslike approach. 

“It’s Mark. He’s here in Oxford, but he’s had his drink spiked.” 

“I, right, what?” Laura asked, struggling to keep up with the logic but already rising to find her coat and shoes. 

“Is it a callout?” Robbie called from the kitchen, coming to hover in the doorway. As soon as he caught the expression on Laura’s face his heart sank. 

“What is it; what’s happened?” Robbie asked, while James was sketching the briefest outline of Mark wanting to spring a Christmas visit on them in her other ear. 

“We’re in A&E now,” James sounded professional and calm, but then his voice cracked as he added, “but Laura, he was fitting in the ambulance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger! Sorry not sorry.


	10. Chapter 10

“Since when has my son been in the country, and how the hell did he end up in hospital?” Robbie demanded as they were shown into the relatives room. He was incandescent with the terrified rage of a parent scared for their child. 

James looked up from his seat on one of the waiting chairs. Lizzie, perched on a squashy sofa opposite him rose to greet them. 

Unlike the main hospital waiting room, the relatives room was set out like a small lounge, with a water cooler and a coffee machine in the corner. 

“What happened?” Laura interrupted any reply James might have been about to give, effectively de-escalating the situation. 

“I don’t know,” James explained. His hair was ruffled and he looked scared and so very young. “We were out in a bar, I bought all his drinks, I swear no one went near them!” 

“How about you start at the beginning?” Laura suggested, ushering Robbie into a seat and perching on the arm of the chair by him. 

“Mark wanted to visit for Christmas as a surprise. He arranged it with Lyn and me, and he’s been staying at my flat.” James started. 

“Then this morning I received a tip off about an increase in incidents of young men having their drinks spiked.” It was easy enough for James to fall back on his training, explaining the key facts and salient information to his former DI. “And you know Moody wants us to stick our murder case on the shelf but my source felt, and I agreed, that this might be linked and that our killer might still be active.” 

“So you thought you’d use my son as bait,” Robbie growled, his voice low and dangerous. 

“No! God, no! I swear Robbie, I would never!” James scrambled to defend himself. 

“So you went on an unofficial stake out, and took Mark with you for company?” Laura asked, making the logical leap. 

“He wanted to come with me. Said he was getting cabin fever hanging out in the flat all the time. I didn’t see the problem: I would have called for backup if we’d seen anything suspicious.” 

“And then what happened?” Laura asked. 

“We gave it up as a lost cause and decided to head home. Only once we got back, Mark was acting odd. Then he complained he felt ill, and I was trying to get him up to drive him to hospital but he collapsed. So I called an ambulance instead.” 

They were interrupted then as a young woman wearing green scrubs bustled in, her dark hair tied back in a low ponytail. She was followed by a young man wearing a white tunic. 

“My name’s Becky, and I’m one of the Doctors here. This is Stuart, he’s a nurse. You’re Mark Lewis’s friends and family, is that right?” 

A collective nod from the small group. 

“We’ve got him stabilised for now, so Stuart can take you through to see him in a minute. I will warn you though: he’s still a bit in and out of it. We’re waiting on some blood test results back, but it would help enormously if any of you know what it is he’s taken?” she asked. 

“He’s not taken anything!” Robbie snapped at her, his accent strong in his distress. “He’s bloody well been spiked!” 

She held up her hands placatingly, and Laura squeezed his shoulder. 

“If any of you know anything please do tell us,” Becky said. “We’re not the police.” 

“No, but we are.” James informed her, as he and Lizzie flashed their warrant cards. “We think this might be linked to an ongoing investigation,” he went on. “we know that there have been some cases of young men being spiked with barbiturates, and there’s a possibility that this is connected.” 

Becky nodded and excused herself, leaving nurse Stuart to show Robbie and Laura through to Mark’s bay in the resus area. 

\--

“You’re sure no one else bought any of his drinks?” Lizzie asked. “It’s not hard to imagine someone being interested: he’s a good looking guy.” 

“No! I bought them, or he did. We didn’t leave any unattended glasses or take drinks from strangers. Next you’ll be asking what he was wearing and if he was asking for it,” James snapped, sarcastic and frustrated. 

“Hey!” Lizzie admonished. 

“Sorry,” James relinquished. “I just don’t understand how this happened.” 

“And was he with you the whole night? You didn’t go to the loo, or step out to make a call?”

"Yes. Yeah, just before we left he’d been to the loo. Then I ran into Liv. She was a bit disgruntled because I cancelled plans with her to stake out the bar, so Mark left us and waited outside. Then when I went out to find him—" 

James sat bolt upright and grabbed Lizzie’s arm. 

“The street chaplain!” 

“What?”

But James was already up and moving, flinging open doors, his long legs carrying him through to the main entrance of the hospital. 

Lizzie was hot on his heels, digging for her car keys even without knowing the details yet. 

\--

Lizzie drove, following James' directions, and with the blue lights flashing in the grille of her unmarked car. James scrabbling with his phone to request backup, and filling her in on what he'd realised. 

"When I found Mark outside, he was chatting to one of the street chaplains. She'd given him a bottle of water. It's the only thing that he drank from all evening that was given to him by a stranger. And - think about it - this whole time we've been saying that there must be someone who seems invisible, who can gain the confidence and trust of the victims despite apparently not knowing them. Who could offer them a lift home, or a spiked drink and they wouldn't be suspicious! The chaplains do exactly that! They sit with people when they're upset or ill, provide a lending ear. It's the perfect way to find a vulnerable target!"

"But you said it was a young woman; we know our killer is a man?" Lizzie asked, as she checked left and right for traffic before ploughing straight through a red light at a roundabout. The sirens and blue lights were working their magic. 

"So she's working with someone else perhaps, or someone has tricked her into it maybe." 

They drew attention as they pulled to a stop outside the bar, blocking the traffic with the car. A couple of uniformed officers from the neighbourhood policing team were waiting to meet them, having been briefed by dispatch. 

The main van for the street chaplains was parked up in a loading bay, and a couple of volunteers loitered next to it, Annie included. The sirens had obviously caught their attention, but it wasn't unusual. Only as James loomed up, a blocky silhouette in his wool coat, badge held aloft, did they catch on that something was amiss. 

"We need you to come with us to answer some questions," he announced as soon as he'd introduced himself. 

Her colleague, a middle aged man of a stocky build, wheeled round as he heard the commotion, staring but staying just outside of their circle. 

"What?" she asked, looking back and forward between James and Lizzie, "What are you talking about; what's going on?"

"Can you tell us your full name please, Miss?" Lizzie asked, standing close to James.

"Annie Fairchild," she answered, cautiously, "what's this about?" 

"Miss Fairchild, earlier this evening you gave a bottle of water to a man sitting outside the back door of Hercules bar, is that right?" James asked. His voice was frighteningly calm. 

"You know I did, he's your friend." Annie said. 

"What did you put in the water?" James demanded to know. 

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about!" she defended.

"Miss Fairchild, shortly after drinking the water you gave him, that man collapsed and was rushed to hospital. We have reason to believe that he's been drugged, and that water was the only thing he had to drink that can't be vouched for. So tell me: what did you put in it?" James stepped closer to the short woman, looming. 

Lizzie shifted subtly closer, ready to grab him if he overstepped. 

"Nothing! It was a brand new bottle. It wasn't even one of mine; I'd run out - so I grabbed one off-" she trailed off, and wheeled round to face her colleague. 

The middle aged man who had been loading the van with her took a step back, further away from the small group of police officers. 

"I took it from Dave's bag." Annie added in a small voice, frowning at him. 

The man in question looked at her, and then at the assembled police officers. He gave them a broad smile, opened his mouth as if to speak, then in the momentary pause while they all waited to see what he had to say, he turned and ran. 

A moment's pause. 

Then James and the two uniformed constables were sprinting after him. 

Lizzie stayed with Annie, explaining that she'd need to make a formal statement, and come with them to the police station. 

He didn't manage to get far. He'd slowed slightly to round the corner and dash down a side street when James slammed into him, knocking him off his feet, as the two of them went down in a tangle of limbs. The two neighbourhood officers close on his heels had the handcuffs out and helped both men up, even as James was reading him his rights. 

\---

Despite the short chase, the burst of adrenaline, and the bruised wrist James had sustained, the capture of their suspect was still somewhat anticlimactic. 

David Stevens was processed and set up in a cell for the night. He'd refused to cooperate with any questioning until a solicitor could be found for him, so they left him to wait until morning. 

They'd confiscated all the bottles of water from the street chaplain van, as well as impounding the van itself, but they'd have to wait until the morning for the lab results to show whether or not the water was drugged. 

Aside from knowing that he was male, and in his 50s, they had no other evidence linking him to any of their crimes. Nonetheless, James and Lizzie were sure that he must be connected, even if not the actual killer. 

Now they just had to find a way to prove it. 

\---

The suspect's car was with the forensics team, looking for any physical evidence to prove that any of the victims had been in it, when Lizzie arrived to check in with them the following morning. 

She and James had been back to the hospital to let Robbie and Laura know that they'd made an arrest, but that until they had charged him, they would be leaving a uniformed officer at the hospital to stand guard over Mark. 

There had followed a fruitless attempt to find out more from Annie Fairchild, but she seemed to genuinely have no further information about what had happened. 

Finally, both of them had managed a quick trip home each to eat, shower and change, and on Lizzie's part catch a couple of hours of sleep. 

They'd agreed to meet back in the office by 8am, and Lizzie knew it was a long shot that the forensics team might have anything for them yet, but nonetheless she dropped by on her way in. 

As luck would have it, they confirmed that they'd sent some hair samples to be tested for DNA and checked with the victims, and that the car was covered in fingerprints inside and out. Clearly, if David Stevens was their killer, he had been certain enough of not being caught that he hadn't bothered trying to remove any evidence of his victims from his car. 

\---

In the end it was almost embarrassing how much forensic evidence there was. 

Fingerprints from all of the victims in or on the passenger side of the car. DNA from one of them. The water bottles from Stevens' supply were all found to be dosed with barbiturates and small amounts of ketamine; the seals having been opened and then reattached with a drop of superglue to give the illusion of being unsullied. 

\---

They'd dispatched Gloucestershire Constabulary to update Michael Carr's parents: they'd apprehended his killer, and in the face of the weight of evidence against him, the suspect had confessed. 

When they got to Samantha Jacobs house, to inform her of the news, they found her sitting with Azim Ahmed, having eaten dinner together. 

"It's good to be able to talk about him; about what happened." Azim explained to James and Lizzie, though neither had been indiscreet enough to question his presence. "My parents know, but we don't talk about these things." he went on. "Samantha understands. We've become friends."

\---

Luke O'Connell had moved back into his flat, the lingering after effects of his attempted murder seeming only to be an additional heavy-duty lock on the front door. 

He was polite, and thanked them profusely when they explained that they had apprehended his attacker. 

As they were leaving, James paused and glanced up the stairs to the door of Liv's flat. 

"I can call a car to pick me up if you want to stay and…" Lizzie offered, noticing James's hesitation. 

"No. No, thanks. We should get the rest of the paperwork sorted first." James told her, with a bland smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'll call her tomorrow; it's late anyway." 

\---

Mark (Lewis)  
Thanks for the first aid, etc. I've been deemed well enough to be allowed my phone now, and there's talk of sending my home tomorrow. Of course Lynn and her entourage arrived today so I might pretend to be iller than I am and stay in hospital for the peace and quiet :)   
Lizzie popped by earlier - she said you were busy. She's tested out the theory that warrant cards trump visiting hours though, if you did want to stop by…   
22:14

Mark (Lewis)  
And I'm sorry, about overstepping and all. I hope we're still friends. Dad's talking about collecting my stuff from yours because he thinks I need to be wrapped in cotton wool after the hospital are done with me. I can insist on coming myself if you wanted a chance to talk about anything?   
22:33

Mark (Lewis)  
Or I can just let my dad go anyway. If you'd rather.   
23:57

James scowled as his phone beeped with yet another message from Mark. He swiped to close the notification on the screen and poured another glass of wine. 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big shout out to the medical staff at my local A&E who had to x-ray me the other week after I fell on my head. I've borrowed their names in tribute, instead of having faceless/anonymous medical staff like I'd originally intended.


	11. Chapter 11

"Are you sure you're alright?" Robbie asked, as he packed Mark's wash bag into the suitcase, and settled the clothes around it. 

James leaned on the doorframe of the spare bedroom where Mark had been staying, watching as Robbie packed the last few things. He'd helped by collecting up a few of Mark's bits and pieces that had been left in various communal areas of the flat, but otherwise left Robbie to do all of the packing. 

"I'm fine." James told him, letting the exasperation show in his tone. 

"You just wrapped up a massive case. One you thought you were going to have to leave unsolved. You personally stopped a fourth potential attack on my son. I thought you might seem a little happier." Robbie informed him. He fixed James with a pointed stare. They'd known each other long enough that Robbie knew when James was brooding over something. 

James sighed, and pushed off from the door frame, coming to perch on the edge of the bed instead. He didn't meet Robbie's eye, instead fiddling with the tag on the suitcase zip. 

"I shouldn't have let Mark get caught up in this." he said, quietly. 

"Aye, but he's a grown lad, and what's done is done. No lasting damage, just a bit of a scare all round." Robbie reassured. He wasn't over the shock of being called to his youngest child's hospital bed, but as soon as he'd had a chance to think calmly he had realised that it wasn't James' fault. 

Though it seemed that perhaps James didn't know this… 

"Thank you for getting him straight to hospital, James." he added. "Glad to know you were looking out for him."

James snorted with derision. 

"My fault he needed hospital in the first place." 

"Oh, you're the one that's been going round drugging people's water bottles are you?" 

"I shouldn't have left him alone. I shouldn't...It was my fault he was sitting out there, accepting drinks from strangers in the first place." 

"How'd you work that one out?"

"We...I…" James trailed off then glanced up at Robbie and away again. He resumed fiddling with the suitcase. "Look, it doesn't matter." he made to stand up and leave the room, but Robbie caught his arm to stop him. 

"James," he prompted. 

"We ran into Liv at the bar. I'd cancelled plans with her to go there; told her it was work. She was a bit peeved to see me there. Mark went off to give us a bit of privacy." James explained, still with his back to Robbie, and Robbie's hand on his arm. 

Robbie sighed, and released his hold, satisfied that this was the best he was going to get from James. He suspected it probably wasn't the whole story, and that there were layers he was missing. 

This was James: there were always layers he was missing. 

"And is it all sorted out with Liv now?" Robbie asked. 

James' silence spoke volumes. 

"You should give her a call, see if she's free for lunch." Robbie advised, zipping up Mark's suitcase and making his exit. "You're still coming to the pub tomorrow?" he checked, as he left. They had an open invite for CID Christmas Eve drinks. 

"I was hoping to avoid it." James admitted. "You're not usually one to force me to socialise with my colleagues." 

"Ah well, this one will be worth it I promise." Robbie informed him, with a twinkle in his eye. 

\---

Having wrapped up the case, James and Lizzie were both off work for the following few days. Several days of annual leave, and then on call but not required to be in the office until January 2nd. 

It wasn't necessarily that James wanted the time off, but he knew that volunteering to swap shifts now would not do him any favours with Robbie. His ex-boss expected him to join them for their family meal on Christmas Day, and he had personally threatened James with kidnap if he tried to sneak off to work instead. 

Still, James was expecting to have plenty of time to himself before the onslaught of Christmas socialisation, so he was a little surprised when there was a knock at the door on Friday evening, just after he'd poured himself a second glass of wine. 

"Liv, hi," James managed to conceal some of his surprise. He'd not heard anything from Liv since they'd spoken in the bar earlier that week. He'd been putting off talking to her; unsure what on earth he could say. 

"Can I come in?" she was shivering slightly on the doorstep. 

James stepped back to allow her into the flat, closing the door and trailing after her into the living room. He fetched a second wine glass and at her murmured _please_ poured her some. 

"I should have called, I'm sorry." James offered, by way of apology. 

Liv took a hearty sip of her wine. 

"I'm going to stay with my brother and his wife for Christmas," she started, "but I wanted to talk to you before I go. I can't-- I won't be in a relationship with someone who isn't emotionally available," she held up a hand to stop him when James looked like he was going to interrupt. "I know that everyone comes with baggage, it would be unrealistic to expect otherwise -especially at my age-" she gave him a wry smile, "but I think you need to sort things out yourself before you're ready to be in a relationship, and I'm not able to be an emotional crutch while you do that." 

James slumped further down on the sofa and reached out to take Liv's hand. 

"I wasn't cheating on you," he said, and then pulled a face. "Or at least, I wasn't trying to," he clarified. 

"That's not really why I'm saying this, James. It's not really a problem. Like I said, we all have baggage. You could have said at any point that you're bisexual, or biromantic, or worried you might be gay, or whatever this whole thing has been. You could have told me that you were attracted to someone else. We could have talked about any of that, and worked something out. Alright, we still might have ended up at this point, but we'd have got here together." she took another fortifying sip of her wine before continuing.

"I do like you James, but you've been a closed book to me this whole time, and if you're not willing to let me in, even a little, then I can't be in this relationship. That's why I'm ending it. It's not really anything to do with Mark, or whatever is or isn't going on there. It's just...I can't be with someone who isn't emotionally available to me. I'm sorry." 

Her eyes were bright, and she had to blink rapidly to stave off crying, but she got through her piece with just the slightest catch in her voice. 

James felt like he'd been punched in the stomach. The guilt and shame a hollow space where his diaphragm used to be, leaving him struggling for words to respond. 

"I'm sorry, Liv." he managed, swallowing hard and squeezing her hand in his. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry-" 

She cut him off effectively by pulling him into a fierce hug, tucking her face into his shoulder, hiding the stray tears that escaped despite her best efforts. James for his part clung tightly to her, hands fisted in the back of her jumper. His slow, even measured breaths were obviously a conscious effort to keep his emotional response in check, even now. 

After a few minutes, Liv extracted herself, sniffing and rubbing her face. 

"I need to go." she said. "Will you be ok by yourself?" she asked. 

James sat leaning forward, clutching his knee with one hand, the other hand scrubbing at his face to remove any errant tears that had escaped. He shook his head, and then cleared his throat a couple of times before speaking. 

"I'll be fine," he assured her, then glancing up to see her worried expression added, "Really, honestly, I'm ok." 

She nodded, and gathered up her things. Once she'd pulled the door closed behind her she frowned, having an internal debate, then fished out her phone and typed a quick message. 

\---

It was less than 20 minutes later when James heard another knock at his door. He'd spent the time since Liv's departure lying on his back on the sofa, staring at an uneven patch in the paintwork on the ceiling, and trying not to think. 

"I have beer; but the takeaway will be another 45 minutes." Robbie held up the four pack of bottles as he spoke, and barged past James, making himself at home in the familiar surroundings. 

"What are you doing here?" James asked, bewildered by the turn of events. 

"Got a message from Lizzie, Liv told her you'd broken up, said she didn't want you sitting on your own brooding. Lizzie delegated that up to me, sensible lass. Her Hathaway wrangling skills aren't a patch on mine." 

"But all your family is visiting - you should be with them." James told him, still watching, befuddled, as Robbie pottered around the kitchen, opening beer and getting out plates and cutlery ready for the apparent food delivery they were now expecting. 

"Aye, and they'll not miss me for a couple of hours. Anyway, I needed the peace and quiet." Robbie told him with a grin. "Don't worry, I'm not going to make you sit and talk about your feelings," he assured James, "though of course if you wanted to do that, I'd be happy to listen…" he hedged as James still stood there looking confused. 

Finally James nodded, accepted the proffered beer, and then slumped back down into his corner of the sofa, curling his legs up under himself and leaving room for Robbie at the other end. Robbie settled down with the TV remote control clutched proprietarily, as he flicked through the channels to find something suitably distracting. 

"Ooh, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates!" he proclaimed, hitting select on the appropriate channel. "Val's Mum used to love this: thought it was what my job was like!" 

James snorted the tiniest laugh at that, and sipped his beer. 

Robbie hit mute when the advert break began, and James let the silence spool out for a moment before he began talking. 

"Can you remember back when we were investigating Zoe Kenneth?" he asked as an opener. 

"I'm not likely to forget that one in a hurry, now am I?" Robbie asked rhetorically. 

"You wanted to know, wanted to ask if… whether Will and I had… If I maybe wasn't as straight as you'd assumed?"

"I asked you if y'were gay, daft sod. You can say the word." 

James pulled a face at that, then started on a slightly different tack. 

"Other people seem to find it easy. Knowing who they like. I've never understood that. I don't know how anyone figures out that they're gay, or straight, or bisexual, ...or asexual."

"Asexual, that's the one where you don't fancy anyone, isn't it?" Robbie asked for clarification. He might not be the most au fait with the latest fads the kids were coming up with these days, but he did read. 

James nodded. 

"I thought maybe that was a good explanation for a while. Maybe I could settle with that, but it still...it didn't fit. None of them fit. I need a 'none of the above' box." 

Robbie sat quietly considering for a moment. Out the corner of his eye he could see that the advert break was over on the TV, but he ignored it. James Hathaway sharing his feelings was a rare and precious thing, and he wasn't going to ruin the moment with undue levity. 

"I know you try to go through life without ever touching anyone or anything, James. But common understanding is generally that you really do need interpersonal relationships, no matter how hard you might find those sometimes." 

"No man is an island," James murmured. 

"Quite. And how you interact with other does shape who you are as a person. So no, maybe you don't want to use any specific labels to be a key part of your personality, but who you are or aren't attracted to is still some part of your whole self. Just because you find something difficult doesn't mean you can just ignore it and hope it goes away." 

"It's worked so far," James protested with a grumble, sullen and not entirely serious. 

"You say that: but you're not exactly happy, are you?" 

James said nothing, but picked at the label on his beer bottle. 

"Was this the crux of the matter with Liv?" Robbie asked after a moment. 

James heaved a big sigh. 

"Yes and no. I've been… It's been difficult, this case and everything. I didn't share my feelings with her. Shut her out." 

"Well relationships need to be built on sharing and communication. Sounds like maybe it'll turn out to have been for the best." Robbie said, ever the pragmatist. 

\---

"You're unusually chipper this evening," James informed Robbie as the latter returned from the bar with a round of drinks. 

The function room of the pub that had been hired for the CID Christmas Party was appropriately decked out in garish coloured strings of lights and tacky tinsel. There was a DJ manning a laptop blaring out the worst sort of Christmas pop tunes, and the buffet table was groaning under the weight of beige food. Sausage rolls, and quiche lorraine, and plain ham sandwiches cut into triangles. 

James would normally have tried to skip the event, but Robbie had been unnervingly keen to attend this year. Lizzie, being an actual functioning adult with social skills, had always intended to go, and was pleased to see that her boss and sort-of-other-boss were actually making an appearance without too much effort on her part. 

Still, the three of them were crowded around one small table, as far away from the speakers as James could find. It meant they were near the door, but that was a bonus for when he wanted to sneak out for a smoke. 

"Just gettin' in the Christmas spirit!" Robbie informed James with a smile. 

"Or the Christmas spirits at least," James muttered, clinking his pint glass against Robbie's. He glanced sideways at Lizzie to see if she'd caught the comment and found her grinning. 

"Oh, come on, sir," she said, raising her wine glass in a toast, "once a year a bit of compulsory socialising isn't going to kill you."

"No but if this music continues, I might have to kill the DJ." he complained. "Do you have somewhere else to be?" he added, noticing Robbie looking at his watch again; at least the third time in the past 10 minutes. 

"No," Robbie answered, but he was grinning and clearly hiding something. 

"What?" 

"That's for me to know, and you to find out!" 

James heard the door swing open behind him again, and braced in anticipation of the cold draught on the back of his neck. Opposite him, Robbie broke out into a huge grin, beaming at whoever had just entered the room. 

James and Lizzie exchanged bewildered glances then twisted around in unison to see who the newcomer was. 

"Tony!" 

Lizzie shot her chair backwards, as if to leap up, though stayed there paralysed with surprise. Tony approached their table, grinning sheepishly. 

"Surprise?" he said by way of greeting. 

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lizzie demanded, still shocked to see her husband in the room when she thought he wasn't able to get back to the UK for Christmas. 

"How about you buy me a drink and I tell you all about it?" Tony offered, nodding towards the bar. 

Still looking stunned, Lizzie followed him to the bar and the two of them settled on stools at the end to talk. 

James mock-glared at Robbie, failing to hide a pleased look. 

"You conspired in this!" he accused. 

Robbie grinned in response. 

"Aye, you're not the only one who can plan surprise family visits y'know!" 

"I'm glad he's here," James added after a moment. "Lizzie's been finding it harder recently. Him being away." 

"I think he might think the same - he didn't give many details but I get the feeling that he's had to put his foot down pretty hard to get Christmas off." 

\---

Christmas Day dawned bright, with clear skies and a weak sunshine in the blue sky. 

James rolled over in bed far enough to grab his phone and wedge his glasses on his nose, then snuggled back down under the covers to keep the chill of the room off his bare shoulders. 

Mark (Lewis)  
Happy Christmas, James.  
00:04

He scowled at the phone screen, marking the message as read but not responding, then quickly typed out a new message to send appropriate seasons greetings to his sister. 

He'd normally have felt obliged to spend the day with her, seeing as he wasn't working, but luckily she was already committed to some volunteering work for the day, and dinner with some friends. They would see enough of each other on their holiday together in January, which he supposed was sufficient for his fraternal duty.

He was expected at Robbie and Laura's house for eleven o'clock and had been promised that it would be hectic. A cup of coffee would improve his morning lie in, but he stayed enjoying the quiet warmth of his bed for a while before getting up to make it. 

\---

After dinner, which took about three hours of a near constant stream of food, the others were keen to play a new board game. James excused himself to the kitchen, offering to load the dishwasher and wash some of the surfeit of serving dishes in return for the excellent hospitality. 

He managed about five minutes of peace and quiet until Mark followed him to the kitchen, having abandoned the game citing the need for an even number of adult players.

“It feels a bit odd, not seeing you all week, after seeing you every day while i was staying at yours.” he commented, leaning against the cabinets and idly playing with the edge of tea towel hanging from one of the door handles. 

James shrugged, still arranging the dishes. 

“You're here to see your family, not to see me.”

“I wanted to thank you, for looking after me the other night.”

James snorted. 

“Shouldn't have let you in harm’s way in the first place.”

“Not your fault - I should have known better than to accept a drink from a stranger. Anyway, no lasting damage.”

James was quiet, apart from the clanking of the dishes as he loaded the dishwasher, and the noise of running water when he rinsed dishes. 

"I heard you broke up with Liv." Mark added. 

"She broke up with me."

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

"I'm not sure that it is, actually. I could talk to her if you think it would help…"

"Wasn't because of you."

"Then why?"

James sighed and paused his dish rinsing. Shoulders hunched, he gripped the edge of the sink as he spoke. 

"Because I'm broken. Not meant for other people. Beyond redemption."

"Fuck off." Mark told him calmly, undeterred by the turn towards melodrama. "Get your head out of your emo arse and give me a real answer." 

Despite himself, James found himself smiling slightly at that. 

"Alright then, because I'm an uncommunicative bastard who can't share feelings to save my life." 

"You've managed to share your feelings perfectly well with me." Mark pointed out, quietly. 

The noise of the music and laughter in the sitting room next door still rose and fell, cheers when something good happened in the board game they were playing. 

"That's different." James' said, equally quietly. He twisted round and leant back on the sink, finally making eye contact with Mark for the first time since he arrived. "You're different." he added. 

Mark felt suddenly as if his hearing was muffled, the sounds of his family blurring to background noise, as he focused on James watching him. His pulse thudded loudly. 

James stepped forward, into Mark's space, ostensibly to reach for a tea towel and dry his hands. Once he'd done so, he dropped the tea towel back onto the kitchen counter, and stepped closer still. 

Mark found himself trembling slightly, as James reached up a hand and rested it gently on his waist, pulling him in, and kissed him. Slightly hesitant at first, and then with more confidence when Mark did not reject the advance. 

A sudden loud cheer from the living room caused them to pull apart, and James had stepped back to the sink and was industriously washing dishes again when Laura came into the kitchen a second later to snag a new bottle of wine off the rack. 

"Leave that for later, James," she said brightly, "you're missing all the fun!" 

Then she flitted back into the sitting room again. 

"I've been offered a new job." Mark admitted, into the silence. 

James turned his head and quirked an eyebrow, following by twisting around and leaning back against the sink. 

"I've wanted to move back to the UK for a while," Mark explained, "I've not decided to stalk you or anything. A friend's been recruiting for his new team - I met with him when I was in Manchester the other week. I'm going to be based up in Newcastle, I think. I know that's still pretty far, but I thought, maybe, we could keep in touch? Spend some time together occasionally, maybe?" 

James grinned, open and unreserved. 

"I'd like that." he said. 

 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END. 
> 
> Y’all, omg, it’s been emotional. I started writing this almost a full year ago, and I was going to write the whole thing in draft before I posted it. Then that didn’t happen. But in the end I think it’s all the better for having taken my time.  
> It’s been a journey, and I’m glad I’m at the end. But maybe, just maybe, there might be a part three of the series...


End file.
